tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32827680239838930322024-03-18T03:02:02.542+00:00Exploding HelicopterExploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.comBlogger227125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-56627385436068023662021-12-01T17:53:00.001+00:002021-12-01T17:53:43.943+00:00High Risk<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZF6PIqykscybHdkWDhPFokwDjVJKSKRBU1sp6vEHq_R8e5Y9puepZFmeFszM8PoVNQ8hSHfTlUlFFnX24bVW7VdvSzm3lQVp-41ZNh0x45cNBDa1-PswwyRQKSS61Kp7Iyz2D7gt6Zus/s500/High+Risk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZF6PIqykscybHdkWDhPFokwDjVJKSKRBU1sp6vEHq_R8e5Y9puepZFmeFszM8PoVNQ8hSHfTlUlFFnX24bVW7VdvSzm3lQVp-41ZNh0x45cNBDa1-PswwyRQKSS61Kp7Iyz2D7gt6Zus/w213-h320/High+Risk.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>You’ve probably heard of ‘diss tracks’ – hip hop songs where the primary aim is to verbally attack or ‘disrespect’ another artist. <p></p><p>For years, these songs were seen as mundane exercises in put-downs and point-scoring – bouts of schoolyard posturing from showy characters with brittle egos. But then one verbal joust between Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls sparked a series of shootings that left both men dead, and suddenly the jingly japes didn’t seem quite so hi-larious. </p><p>Still, the tradition did live on in other ways. And <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114437/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2">High Risk (1995)</a> can lay dubious claim to being an actual ‘diss film’. The moviemaker behind it – renowned Hong Kong producer, Wong Jing – really did carefully shape the movie’s content to construct a new (and unwelcome) orifice for legendary martial artist, Jackie Chan, while also eviscerating his action man credentials. </p><p>The score-settling result is a savage – and surprisingly effective – send-up of the cinematic chop-socky star. What you might call a kung fu kick in the reputational goolies. </p><p><b>The plot </b></p><p>Frankie Lane is a martial arts movie star famous for doing all his own stunts. (Remind you of anyone?) But in reality – or the reality of High Risk - Frankie can’t be bothered with the rough stuff, so secretly delegates all the dangerous stunts to his bodyguard. Ouch. </p><p>Unfortunately for Frankie, an ambitious news reporter has cottoned on to his fraud and is threatening a television expose. Then, just when it seemed his day couldn’t get any worse, our hero finds himself trapped in a skyscraper that’s been taken over by terrorists. Crikey! </p><p><b>The backstory to the beef </b></p><p>To say the Frankie Lane spoof of Jackie Chan is a bit ‘on the nose’ would be a gross understatement. (For a western equivalent, imagine watching a movie about a musclebound Austrian coward who’s scared of guns and loud noises, and called Harold Schwitzaneuger. You get the idea.) But why is everyone’s favourite, rubbery-faced risk-taker being portrayed in such an unfavourable light? </p><p>The answer lies in a movie that Wong Jing and Chan made together a couple of years earlier: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hunter_(film)">City Hunter (1993)</a>. Envisioned as a triumphant collaboration between two titans of Hong Kong cinema, the production quickly deteriorated into furious rows and on-set shouting matches – and Chan even tried to get Wong booted off the movie. </p><p>Despite their feuding, the project did get finished – even if it was to no one’s satisfaction. (Years later, a still disgruntled Chan described it as the worst film of his career.) For Wong though, revenge was a dish best served in celluloid. And when he made High Risk – a formulaic Die Hard knock-off – a couple of years later, he saw an opportunity to get even with his former foe. </p><p><b>A study in character assassination </b></p><p>Playing the role of Frankie, Jacky Cheung presents an instantly recognisable caricature of Chan. With his mop-top hairstyle, bumbling manner and exaggerated facial expressions, he neatly skewers Chan’s clownish screen persona. Worse, Frankie is portrayed as a womanising drunk and coward no longer willing to do fight scenes or his own stunts, due to years of soft living. Miaow! </p><p>It's raucous stuff and, for the most part, hugely enjoyable. But there’s one slight problem: Wong’s obsession with settling an old score ends up unbalancing the rest of the story. And that’s because Cheung’s Chan-baiting character, who dominates most of the screen time, isn’t actually the film’s hero. </p><p>That role falls to Jet Li, who plays Frankie’s bodyguard and unofficial stunt double. So, it’s the pint-sized pugilist who leads the hostage rescue, does the heroics, and ultimately kills the villain – you know, standard movie hero stuff. But his character is continually side-lined throughout the film, so Wong can pour yet more merde on the Chan character’s head. To illustrate: think of Die Hard’s terrorist negotiating yuppie sleazeball Ellis. Now, just imagine if he had been given as much screen time as Bruce Willis, and you’ll see the problem. </p><p><b>High Risk, High Reward </b></p><p>Still, this is a minor quibble about what is unquestionably a wildly entertaining film. Ultimately, Wong presents grandly staged action sequences, cartoonish villains, and a deliciously acerbic critique of a cinema superstar. It’s a spectacular feat. </p><p>And it’s worth dwelling for a moment on the singular nature of the filmmaker’s accomplishment. Despite being full of preening narcissists and swivel-eyed sociopaths (‘Hello, Harvey!’), the movie industry resolutely keeps its axe-grinding out of public view, instead presenting a vision of a world where everyone is super-fun to work with and simply a ‘dah-ling’. </p><p>In that context, it took enormous chutzpah for Wong to make a major motion picture which had the explicit purpose of exacting personal revenge against an A-list colossus of the industry. That’s putting some serious cojones on display… </p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action </b></p><p>While Wong’s primary interest was clearly in obliterating Jackie Chan’s reputation, it’s nice to see that he also found time to do some truly horrific damage to a whirlybird. </p><p>Here’s what happens: with the terrorists in control of the skyscraper, Jet Li hijacks a police helicopter – which of course, he can effortlessly pilot. As he ascends to the floor where the hostages are being held, the villains open fire, so our hero makes an improbable leap from the chopper onto a window ledge. The result? The pilotless copter crashes through the window, exploding multiple times as the wrecked fuselage skids across the floor. </p><p><b>Artistic merit </b></p><p>Excessive, extravagant, entertaining and extremely unlikely. It’s a bravura scene, in which the helicopter not only explodes multiple times, but we also get to see a baddie cut clean in half by a rotor blade. Huzzah! Added bonus: the viewer is treated to a frankly weird ‘point of view’ shot from the helicopter as it careers out of control and in flames. Encore, Mr Wong! Encore! </p><p><b>Exploding helicopter innovation </b></p><p>We’ve previously seen helicopters crash through the inside of buildings – in Heaven’s Fire, Golgo 13: The Professional and American Heist. But this one is a real doozy. </p><p><b>Interesting fact </b></p><p>Such was the aggravation caused by High Risk that Jet Li subsequently felt moved to apologise to Jackie Chan for his involvement in the film. </p>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-18482266498111195302021-06-09T12:10:00.002+01:002021-06-09T18:17:33.810+01:00General Commander<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF8IrxJM84575mPG1xocMUbAgsctIHMh8LdZvn_aAVdV5Z4-w1KSzxbUtRLi7Ycm604aWMvqWoNOJ_NjayLVH6fKZV7aQ2DMjBLpYljPDxuezOPJH_M32GRsf0an3fGkC9E2Z3RxZpYD0/s1500/General+Commander.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1062" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF8IrxJM84575mPG1xocMUbAgsctIHMh8LdZvn_aAVdV5Z4-w1KSzxbUtRLi7Ycm604aWMvqWoNOJ_NjayLVH6fKZV7aQ2DMjBLpYljPDxuezOPJH_M32GRsf0an3fGkC9E2Z3RxZpYD0/s320/General+Commander.jpg" /></a></div>In the motor trade, they call them a ‘cut and shut’: a scam where you take the remains of two wrecked cars, weld them together, then flog the newly created ‘vehicle’ to an unsuspecting punter.<p></p><p>Obviously, the workmanship of these Franken-motors is criminally substandard and likely to cause serious harm to anyone encountering them. But, don’t expect the fraudsters to care. They’re just out for a quick buck.</p><p>Such unscrupulous behaviour was doubtless the inspiration for the recent Steven Seagal vehicle, General Commander (2019).</p><p>At first glance, it appears to have the bodywork of a functional action film. But lift the bonnet, and you realise with horror that bits of a TV series have been clumsily welded on to a movie format in such a hap-hazard fashion it should be immediately consigned to the scrapheap. </p><p>But before we explore our automotive analogy further, let’s kick the tyres of the plot...</p><p><b>The plot</b></p><p>Big Steve leads a team of CIA agents who are trying to bring down a global crime syndicate. But when the bust goes wrong – and one of the aikido arm-waver’s buddies is killed – the agency moves to shut down the investigation and disband his unit.</p><p>Appalled by the decision, the Putin apologist and his comrades quit, so they can mount their own vigilante operation to stop the mobsters and avenge their dead chum.</p><p>So, with Seagal and his friends having put themselves Above The Law, the only questions we need ask are, who’s going to be Hard To Kill and which baddie is Marked For Death? (See what we did there?)</p><p><b>Cut and shut: the movie</b></p><p>One question that cineastes across the globe would surely be asking about General Commander, if any had bothered to see it, is this: How did the movie manage to become such an unsightly mess – the cinematic equivalent of a Range Rover engine crammed onto the chassis of a Mini Metro?</p><p>Turns out there’s a simple answer. Although Big Steve’s latest opus has been released as a movie, the project actually started life as a 12-part TV series. But with just two episodes in the can, the whole shebang was mysteriously abandoned.</p><p>No official explanation was offered. And it would take a much harsher critic than Exploding Helicopter to draw any link between this sudden shelving and the unsavoury sexual assault allegations swirling around Seagal at that time. </p><p>Nevertheless, the costly cancellation left producers with an expensive problem. Having already sunk thousands into the production, how could they salvage some quick cash from the wreckage?</p><p>Their solution was worthy of Arthur Daley himself. They would simply bolt the existing footage together and try to pass it off as a complete film.</p><p>Unfortunately for them (and not to mention the viewer), there’s no disguising the shoddy workmanship here. All the awkward joins and lapses that come from shunting together disparate scenes are clearly visible. The exposition-heavy plot lurches along like a car with a clogged fuel line. And the all-too-scarce action scenes are as exciting to watch as a traffic jam.</p><p><b>The curious case of Big Steve’s barnet</b></p><p>Faced with such dire fare, the disappointed viewer must look elsewhere for entertainment. And sadly for the Buddhist-botherer, there’s nothing more riveting in this parade of dreck than the increasing absurdity of his follicular arrangement.</p><p>Seasoned Seagal watchers well know that the great man has long employed tonsorial enhancement measures. (The receding hairline he sported in debut Above The Law had mysteriously disappeared by break-out hit, Under Siege.) But like Michael Jackson and his nose, the famously vain martial artist has never been able to stop surgically fiddling with his barnet.</p><p>Modern science may never be able to unravel the exact combination of transplants, plugs and weaves that went into creating the Seagal barnet. But be assured: the wiry, brillo-like substance currently perched atop his head is unlike any other Earthly hair form. More than anything, it resembles the black skull cap favoured by intergalactic dictator, Ming the Merciless. (And we all know how much Steve, a noted Putin-botherer, enjoys a little tyrant time.)</p><p>However, with a 70th birthday fast approaching, it appears that Seagal’s extraordinary plug-weave-wig-monster has finally allowed a single concession to the passage of time. Whisper it gently, dear reader, but there are now actually small patches of silvery white dust along the sides of his otherwise obsidian crown.</p><p>It’s an almost touchingly pathetic gesture towards verisimilitude, like putting pieces of coal on a snowman’s face and expecting it to talk. And of course, it does not work. The idea was clearly to lend the big man a slightly distinguished air. But in reality, it looks like he lost his balance in a grocery store and crashed into the talcum powders.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></p><p>Putting tonsorial tomfoolery aside, let’s get down to the serious business of exploding helicopters.</p><p>Having finally tracked the villains down, Seagal and his team engage in the obligatory final confrontation. This involves a car chase and a gun battle during which a helicopter appears because… well, who knows? (By this point, Exploding Helicopter had long since stopped trying to find any logic in the proceedings.)</p><p>While taking heavy fire from the chopper, one of the good guys pulls out a rocket launcher that happens to be sitting in the boot of their vehicle.</p><p>He fires at the whirlybird, which explodes in a far from convincing CGI fireball. As our hero admires his pyrotechnic handiwork, he yells, “Merry Christmas, motherfucker!” And seasons greetings to you too, sir!</p><p><b>Artist merit</b></p><p>Overall, it’s perfunctory stuff. Only the foul-mouthed (and festive-themed) one-liner manages to perk up the mood – but that line, like much else in the film, is totally baffling.</p><p>You see, at no point during the previous action has it ever been established what time of year it is. And given that the film is set in the broiling Philippines, Christmas is ho-ho-hardly the first thing on the viewer’s mind while sitting through this nonsense. (Presumably, the Christmas references ended up somewhere on the cutting room floor.)</p><p><b>Interesting fact</b></p><p>The credits provide further tortured evidence of the struggle it took to re-fashion General Commander into a film. Despite a listed running time of 85 minutes, this film actually lasts just 76 minutes.</p><p>And those extra nine minutes..? Desperate to fill out time, the director has pointlessly regurgitated bits of the film you’ve just watched as a backdrop while the end credits (a hall of shame for everyone involved) slowly scroll up the screen.</p><p><b>Want more?</b></p><p>Check out the review of General Commander by our buddy the <a href="http://dtvconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2021/01/general-commander-2019.html">DTV Connoisseur</a>.</p>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-82511040951307161642021-02-27T10:44:00.000+00:002021-02-27T10:44:11.681+00:00The Wolf's Call<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9WOOWnn-jMQzu1YiXk8z2QfbRielHT5GczkYQMPOwjiTjTsuPeHfzTN382uld6bfS6Uygbnj2zvNVW8KY3ZN_H9b3OQPKMD5Xe5grf6emm7mX1MlXhf-5VpJWdcAoWIfH7ku17muq94/s560/Wolf+Call+560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="421" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC9WOOWnn-jMQzu1YiXk8z2QfbRielHT5GczkYQMPOwjiTjTsuPeHfzTN382uld6bfS6Uygbnj2zvNVW8KY3ZN_H9b3OQPKMD5Xe5grf6emm7mX1MlXhf-5VpJWdcAoWIfH7ku17muq94/s16000/Wolf+Call+560.jpg" /></a></div><br />Is there anything harder to love than French cinema? Not in Exploding Helicopter’s experience.<p></p><p>If their filmmakers aren’t bamboozling the audience with avantgarde narrative structures, they’re boring them rigid with angst-laden characters discussing existentialism amid clouds of Gauloise smoke. The idea of simply entertaining the viewer seems positively offensive to their intellectual sensibilities.</p><p>This propensity for pretension would be bad enough were it confined solely to their prestige productions. But even when embarking on the most generic of genre films, our Gallic cousins still appear incapable of excluding their artier affectations. And if you want a case in point, look no further than la submarine drama, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7458762/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Wolf’s Call (2019)</a>.</p><p>On its watery surface, this looks like just the kind of Hunt For Red October thriller you’ve seen countless times before. But peer beneath the waves, and you’ll soon detect the usual signs of showy self-regard, pulsing away like a pompous sonar. Mon dieu!</p><p><b>The plot</b></p><p>A French submarine crew find themselves at the centre of an international crisis when Russia launches a nuclear missile at their country. With their nation under attack, they’re ordered to sail in to position and fire a retaliatory nuke. Sacre bleu!</p><p>But wait! No sooner have the crew been given their irrevocable instructions, than the attack is found to be a heinous trick! The Ruskies didn’t fire the missile, after all. It’s actually some generic Jihadists (the villain du jour for lazy screenwriters) who are intent on destroying the West. Or at least France, so perhaps they’re not all bad.</p><p>The ‘grand fromages’ of the French military are now faced with a terrible dilemma. With their nuke-armed submarine already en route to blast an unwitting Russia into radioactive rubble, they have no choice but to send out a second submarine to seek and destroy their own men. Merde!</p><p><b>Submerged in self-importance</b></p><p>If you’ve watched any American action movies over the last 30 years, you’ll know how this story usually plays out.</p><p>An impossibly buff hero with perfect hair will hyperactively bounce through a series of obstacles before saving the day at the last minute (usually by disobeying orders and improvising a solution). Then he’ll grab an enviably hot girlfriend and motorcycle off into the blush of dawn. (Think Tom Cruise in Top Gun).</p><p>Au naturalment, our Froggy neighbours could never bring themselves to do anything so gauche. Instead, our protagonist is a spoddy sonar operator who spends most of the film, brow furrowed, listening to propeller cavitation on a pair of oversized headphones. Arnold Schwarzenegger, this is not.</p><p>With such strong nerd credentials, you’d think our big-eared hero would be unlikely to enjoy any romantic entanglements. Au contraire! You forget that France is a country where brainiacs and philosophers are more revered than rock stars. They’re practically pin-ups.</p><p>So, after pulling an unfeasibly hot bookshop owner (while attempting to buy a mathematics textbook, no less!), he gets to enjoy a passionate night of rumpy-pumpy. Oh-la-la!</p><p>But any viewers hoping to see the earnestly cerebral tone briefly enlivened with a bit of naked nookie will be left feeling decidedly limp.</p><p>Inspired by our man’s profession as a sonar operator, the sex scene focusses exclusively on the sounds of the couple’s conjugal canoodling. So, rather than shots of bouncing boobs or thrusting buttocks, you instead get abstract close-ups and the amplified sounds of racing heartbeats and heavy breathing.</p><p>In what is already a very French film, this seems like an impossibly French thing to do – the movie scene equivalent of a mime artist with a white-painted face pretending to be trapped inside a glass cube. Frankly, it’s a wonder we were spared the sonic stylings of our hero padding off to the khazi for a post-coital piss.</p><p>Mercifully though, once the action moves from the boudoir to the ocean bed, things do pick up and start resembling the Crimson Tide-style thriller you’d hoped to be watching all along.</p><p><a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3024530/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Reda Kateb </a>(A Prophet, Zero Dark Thirty) and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1082477/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Omar Sy</a> (Lupin, Jurassic World) lend some welcome grit and gravitas as the two grim-faced, sweating sub commanders. And the final hour, in which the two submarines engage in an underwater game of cat and mouse as the clock relentlessly ticks towards doomsday, is genuinely tense.</p><p>Despite its loftier ambitions, The Wolf’s Call does turn out to be an intelligent and suspense-filled drama, which is well worth submerging yourself in for a couple of hours.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></p><p>But enough aquatic theatrics: what about the aerial action? The exploding helicopter sequence occurs refreshingly early in the film, when a Syrian chopper is hunting a French submarine that’s trapped in shallow water.</p><p>Unable to submerge and escape, the sub captain instead opts to confront the threat head-on. Grabbing a conveniently handy rocket launcher, Captain Bullseye (literally) takes aim and blasts the bothersome whirlybird to smithereens. Problem solved.</p><p><b>Artistic merit</b></p><p>While the method of destruction is routine, the setting certainly isn’t. This is the first-ever submarine versus chopper encounter recorded at Exploding Helicopter. (Unless of course, you count The Spy Who Loved Me and the famous encounter between Roger Moore’s submersible car and Caroline Munro’s shortly-to- be-destroyed helicopter. But then, expert readers like yourself already knew that, right? Right?)</p><p><b>Interesting (and still unknown) fact</b></p><p>Readers who’ve made it this far may be wondering what lies behind the film’s cool sounding yet puzzling moniker: The Wolf’s Call. Apparently, it’s something to do with sonar – though precisely what, we can’t tell you. </p><p>There’s a short, expository scene at one point where one character gamely attempts a garbled explanation, but it made precious little sense. Exploding Helicopter has watched the film twice now and is still none the wiser.</p>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-22804171786529466912021-02-07T13:03:00.002+00:002021-02-07T13:50:22.404+00:00Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWq05ImF1qeE_cFUC018_anggRYKK3y2sYnqeBK89DOsSx_uadLHNbQO0iwiaC9KFm2lUdx_dje5pD9PolvZ187UafeHV6CnwdFNFfszTJAo7zxTav0whtHbAL4dVtI7SyGXnoGfkpyeQ/s691/Attack+of+the+Killer+Tomatoes.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWq05ImF1qeE_cFUC018_anggRYKK3y2sYnqeBK89DOsSx_uadLHNbQO0iwiaC9KFm2lUdx_dje5pD9PolvZ187UafeHV6CnwdFNFfszTJAo7zxTav0whtHbAL4dVtI7SyGXnoGfkpyeQ/s320/Attack+of+the+Killer+Tomatoes.jpg" /></a></div>As Shakespeare almost said: some films are born with cult status, some achieve cult status, and others have cult status thrust upon them.<p></p><p>But if Bill the Bard never quite uttered those words, it’s clearly only because he never lived to see Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! (1978) - a film with a cult following bigger than Jim Jones.</p><p>Made for a mere $90,000 by a bunch of have-a-go filmmakers, the film was panned by critics and largely ignored by audiences on its release. Yet as the years passed, a curious thing happened. The film steadily acquired a dedicated following – and at this point there have been three sequels, a computer game, a comic and an animated TV series. (Inevitably, a reboot is also in the works).</p><p>How did such an inauspicious film acquire the illustrious status it enjoys today? Exploding Helicopter set out to forensically investigate the issue. Or just glance at Wikipedia, if that was too much work.</p><p><b>The plot</b></p><p>When scientific efforts to improve the humble tomato go wrong, it transforms the normally docile salad staple into a murderous, human-hungry fruit. Yikes!</p><p>Naturally, in this moment of crisis, the Government calls in their top experts to tackle the fearsome fruit threat. The crack team includes a paratrooper who drags an open parachute behind him, a diver who's never out of scuba gear, and a master of disguise who conceals his appearance by dressing as a black Adolf Hitler. Well, we did say the world was in trouble.</p><p>The scene is set for an apocalyptic man versus lycopersicum showdown. Can our heterogenous heroes save the day? Will America succumb to the deadly Red Menace? And, most importantly, do you say ‘tomayto’ or ‘tomahto’? Let’s call the whole review off…</p><p><b>Attack of the B Movie parody</b></p><p>If all this sounds like it’d make a deeply terrible film, you’d be absolutely right. But then, that was always the point.</p><p>Inspired by old science fiction B-movies, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes parodies the z-grade films that clogged up drive-ins during the Fifties and Sixties. (Who can forget such terrifyingly titled efforts as Attack Of The Mushroom People?)</p><p>At first glance, ‘Killer Tomatoes’ appears to be as bad as the films it’s supposed to be sending up. The acting is terrible, the sets shaky and the special effects profoundly non-special. (This was a product of the film’s cheap ‘outside the film industry’ origins rather than intentional homage). But despite the readily apparent limitations, it possesses an oddly infectious – and undeniable – joie de vivre.</p><p>The first half hour is terrific fun. It includes an amusing title sequence, a tomato-based Jaws parody, and a terrifically daft sequence where senior military bigwigs hold a high-powered meeting in a comedically small room. And the quickfire style of the gags, which blend silliness, satire and slapstick, make it feel like a forerunner of the disaster movie spoof, Airplane! (1980).</p><p>However, like an eight-day-old tomato, it does all start to feel a little squelchy and off at around thirty minutes in. Plot lines quickly go nowhere, and it gradually dawns that the comedic value of some of the two-dimensional characters have an incredibly short shelf-life. But still, a few jokes continue to hit the target and the whole production’s full-blooded commitment to the absurd inspires forgiveness.</p><p>None of this, though, explains how the film went from obscure curio to cult classic. Let’s be clear: there is no shortage of god-awful-but-with-a-bit-of-kitschy-charm movies gathering dust in the world’s cinematic vaults. But what saved ‘Killer Tomatoes’ from obscurity was its inclusion in a very influential book: The Fifty Worst Films Of All Time.</p><p>The book-fuelled publicity saw the film become a fixture of ‘midnight movie’ slots at independent cinemas and a surprise hit on the (then newly launched) home video market. Eternal cult status was assured. But, you ask, what about the really important question: the calibre of its exploding helicopter credentials?</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></p><p>As police gamely battle the homicidal tomatoes in a field, a small helicopter carrying some random dignitary comes in to land. But as it descends, the tail rotor clips the field surface and breaks off. Instantly, the wounded whirlybird starts spinning wildly before crashing to the ground and tumbling over on its side.</p><p>The action cuts away momentarily to a crowd of people running for cover. When it cuts back, the helicopter is already a flaming, molten ruin, with smoke billowing everywhere. Sensing his Oscar moment may be at hand, one character loudly exclaims: “My God! Did you see that? A tomato flew into it!”</p><p><b>Artistic merit</b></p><p>Given this is a zero-budget movie with famously terrible effects – remember, it largely revolves around people pretending to be scared of red balls of foam – the chopper conflagration looks great. It is surprisingly, grippingly realistic – as in documentary-level accurate and convincing. And it turns out there’s a good reason for that: the helicopter really did crash and explode.</p><p>You see, while the helicopter was merely meant to land in the field, the pilot cocked it all up and crashed the bloody thing. As the giddy cameras whirred, it really did spin violently then roll over on its side.</p><p>But here’s the best bit. As genuinely terrified actors disembarked and ran for their lives from the smoking vehicle, which quickly caught alight and erupted in an inferno, the production crew – resourceful as always – hastily sketched out a scene on the spot and improvised some lines around the burning wreckage. Miraculously, no one was harmed in the crash. And with a little quick thinking, the smouldering chopper became just another victim of those deadly tomatoes.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b></p><p>First and only known helicopter destroyed by a tomato.</p><p><b>Favourite line</b></p><p>“It’s not blood, it’s tomato juice.”</p><p><b>Interesting fact</b></p><p>A ‘before he was famous’ George Clooney has an early starring role in the sequel, Revenge Of The Killer Tomatoes (1988).</p><p><b>Review by: Jafo</b></p><p><b><i>Still want more then check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes. Listen now on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and all other major podcatchers.</i></b></p><p><br /></p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="208" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/9903645?autoplay=false" width="504"></iframe>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-63287555770772614782020-10-10T11:51:00.002+01:002020-10-10T12:06:35.734+01:00Angel Has Fallen<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQlecVcW7jFrCr3-BCghKZpuJNjQmOwk25WwzPR5i6KonrgXvrboZr5xSjqtRx136P8EEPONL4YH3pyIM9lJgcgHJD0PJfjAME3KbttzJsvfBpzlIM6TrJrmHQvGdBX4mzAptHddzUVE/s560/Angel+Has+Fallen+560.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOQlecVcW7jFrCr3-BCghKZpuJNjQmOwk25WwzPR5i6KonrgXvrboZr5xSjqtRx136P8EEPONL4YH3pyIM9lJgcgHJD0PJfjAME3KbttzJsvfBpzlIM6TrJrmHQvGdBX4mzAptHddzUVE/s16000/Angel+Has+Fallen+560.jpg" /></a></div><br />Admit it: you were expecting something more like ‘Standards Have Fallen’.<p></p><p>After the grim uber-violence of Olympus Has Fallen, and the queasy xenophobia of London Has Fallen, it’s fair to say hopes weren’t high for instalment three in Gerard Butler’s presidential protection franchise.</p><p>The film looked for all the world like a last desperate cash-grab before the series was consigned to the scrapheap (or even worse, the dingy netherworld of DTV sequels). This impression was only heightened by news of a slimmed down budget and scaled down cast (series stalwarts Angela Bassett, Aaron Eckhart, and Melissa Leo are all notably absent).</p><p>So, imagine Exploding Helicopter’s surprise when <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6189022/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Angel Has Fallen (2019)</a> turned out to be a rollickingly good action romp.</p><p>How on earth did that happen? And please can we have some more?</p><p><b>The plot</b></p><p>Gerard Butler once again finds himself in the centre of bullet-strewn bedlam after an assassination attempt on the President. After waking in a hospital, Jowly Gerry quickly learns that his entire team is dead, POTUS is in a coma, and he’s the FBI’s chief suspect in the attempted hit. Zoiks!</p><p>Naturally, it’s not long before Big Gez escapes and goes on the run in an effort to clear his name. Along the way, he must work out who’s masterminding the conspiracy, avoid the mercenaries hunting him down and reconnect with his estranged father. All while trying to decide if he wants to take a desk job at work. Apparently, the dental package is very attractive...</p><p><b>Standards had fallen</b></p><p>You’d be forgiven for thinking all this makes Angel Has Fallen sound remarkably like its knuckleheaded predecessors. But watching the film, it becomes clear there’s been a deliberate tonal reset.</p><p>While the grisly violence of past entries remains intact, the unpleasant strand of quasi-racism – “Why don’t you go back to Fuckheadistan?” bellows Butler in the London entry – has been quietly expunged from the formula. (Viewers wanting to see that unsavoury combination should instead check out Stallone’s thoroughly nasty Rambo: Last Blood.)</p><p>In addition, the stakes for our hero are made more personal. Not only must Gezza prove his innocence and defend his family, he’s also thrown together with his absentee father (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000560/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Nick Nolte</a>) – a PTSD-addled Vietnam veteran who’s now living off-grid like a crazed doomsday prepper. Or, as Butler observes: “One step down from the Unabomber.”</p><p>This move allows the film to make some surprisingly thoughtful nods towards the mental toll taken by a life of violence. There’s even an emotional reunion between these two grizzled warriors as they weigh the personal cost of the sacrifices they’ve made for their country.</p><p>Admittedly, the pair then seal their reconciliation by bloodily butchering a team of military contractors who’ve been sent to kill them. But hey, this is a ‘Has Fallen’ film, not a Bergman-esque reckoning of the human condition.</p><p>So, while Exploding Helicopter can enjoy having a little fun at Angel Has Fallen’s expense, the film absolutely succeeds on its own terms. You get muscular set pieces, a well-rounded story and meaningful character beats. What more could you ask for? To which the obvious answer is….</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></p><p>….an exploding helicopter. Or, in this case, four. The first occurs during the attempted coup d’etat. While relaxing on a fishing trip, the president and his protection team are attacked by a flock(?) of exploding drones. (Answers on a postcard as to what the collective noun for these murderous machines should be.)</p><p>Packed with explosives, the miniature aircraft dive straight at their targets like robotic kamikaze pilots. They wipe out a few Secret Service agents and then smash into the presidential helicopter, Marine One, and two accompanying Osprey V-22, blowing them up.</p><p>But wait: that’s not all.</p><p>At the end of the film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0396812/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Danny Huston</a> - the scenery-chomping villain of the piece - tries to make his getaway in a helicopter that’s about to lift-off. But before he can make his escape, Butler detonates the whirlybird using the grenade launcher under his machine gun. Perhaps they should have called this one Aircraft Has Fallen.</p><p><b>Artistic merit</b></p><p>We give top marks to the chopper fireball staged at the end of the film as part of the film’s big finale. Its burning carcass acts as a haunting backdrop for the climatic mano-a-mano knife fight between Huston and Butler.</p><p>Sadly, the earlier scene is a bit of a disappointment. While it’s hard to fault the scene overall, the chopper fireballs are a little blink-and-you’ll-miss-them.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b></p><p>Together with <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.com/2011/09/independence-day.html">Independence Day</a> and <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.com/2012/04/sentinel.html">The Sentinel</a>, Angel Has Fallen can be added to a small but perfectly formed group of films that boast the fiery destruction of a presidential helicopter. Impressively, the film also features the first use of a drone to blow up a chopper.</p><p><b>Interesting fact</b></p><p>Readers with long memories may have noticed that Angel Has Fallen’s story bares no relation to the one trailed in much of the advance publicity. That’s because it was originally meant to feature terrorists hijacking Air Force One.</p><p>But with Butler unhappy with the script, veteran screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen (Taken, The Transporter) was called in to fix things. And ultimately, this ‘repair job’ involved junking the entire thing and coming up with a completely new story.</p><p>Only one problem remained: how to explain the title they were now stuck with? Cue a newscaster on the Exposition News Network droning the improbable line: “Tonight, the President’s guardian angel has fallen…”</p><p><b>Still want more?</b></p><p>Why not check out our review of Angel Has Fallen on the Exploding Helicopter podcast. Listen on iTunes, Acast, Stitcher, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. </p><p><br /></p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="208" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/podcast/5131809?autoplay=false" width="504"></iframe>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-83794382513721117232020-09-22T17:28:00.001+01:002022-07-12T20:45:07.078+01:00Firepower<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3AbPOYaD-kKkDC56rr5lr0pD8SJTyhc-41xW77jwyeY5upC3ePsRGtLxAl22E7rakKJN7Ao9UiaAxh5nGLjqPjxpzxWZiO5-1DpIc89HJY2dChekyfPyQohKrN05z16y_4DF6VgFhFQs/s300/Firepower+560.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="227" data-original-width="300" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3AbPOYaD-kKkDC56rr5lr0pD8SJTyhc-41xW77jwyeY5upC3ePsRGtLxAl22E7rakKJN7Ao9UiaAxh5nGLjqPjxpzxWZiO5-1DpIc89HJY2dChekyfPyQohKrN05z16y_4DF6VgFhFQs/w400-h303/Firepower+560.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Here’s a challenge: name a Michael Winner film not called Death Wish. Tricky, isn’t it?<p></p><p>For a man so famous for being a film director, he really didn’t make very many famous films. These days, if anyone remembers him at all, it’s as a notoriously waspish restaurant critic or a smug-faced presence in car insurance commercials.</p><p>But never let it be said that this blog is afraid of terrible movie-making. Throwing any notion of quality control to the wind, Exploding Helicopter has dived into one of the dustier corners of the Winner cinematic canon, so you don’t have to.</p><p>And so we present the bonkers, twisty, unforgettable-but-not-in-a-good way thriller: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079153/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1">Firepower </a>(1979).</p><p><b>The plot</b></p><p>Sitting comfortably? Good. Now, maybe pop a couple of paracetamols before reading on…</p><p>This insanely confusing story begins when a scientist is killed by an explosion in his laboratory. His widow (Sophia Loren: yes, that <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000047/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Sophia Loren</a>) is convinced that the untimely death is the work of a crooked industrialist, called Stegman.</p><p>Sultry Sophia turns to the FBI for help, but they’re unable to act since Stegman is living on a Caribbean island with no extradition laws. Faced with such an administrative challenge, the Feds do what any reasonable law enforcement organisation might do: employ a shady mafia boss (Eli Wallach) to kidnap Mr Big and spirit him back to the US on their behalf.</p><p>So far, so sensible, right? But we’re only getting started... Next, the mafia don calls up a retired hitman (James Coburn) to carry out the killing. And the contract killer’s first step is to recruit his secret identical twin brother – also played by James Coburn. At this point, you’re barely ten minutes into the film, and the layers of bunkum and confusion just continue to multiply and sprawl. Half an hour in, Exploding Helicopter needed to have a nice lie-down on the sofa.</p><p>Over two very long hours, the film hits you with an unrelenting barrage of double-crosses, secret identities and hidden agendas. You’re left with the sense that nobody in the film really has the faintest clue what’s going on – and if they do, they certainly didn’t tell Michael Winner.</p><p><b>The cast</b></p><p>Befitting a film that’s so all over the shop, the cast is an eclectic jumble of famous actors, familiar faces, and ‘what the hell are they doing in this?’ cameos.</p><p>Topping the bill is lanky-limbed leading man, James Coburn and Euro-cinema royalty, Sophia Loren. They’re both fine actors, but as an onscreen pairing they have all the easy rapport and natural chemistry of breakfast telly’s Piers Morgan and Susannah Reid.</p><p>Alongside them, there’s a rogue’s gallery of character and bit-part actors including the aforementioned Eli Wallach, Vincent Gardenia (Death Wish) and Dominic ‘Junior Soprano’ Chianese. Bringing a further positive, rosy glow to the proceedings is OJ Simpson who, as per usual, murders his lines with the same alacrity with which he reputedly murdered his own wife. (Fun fact: for some reason, Simpson seems to appear with puzzling regularity in films where helicopters explode.)</p><p>Anyone not already dizzy from this pick n’ mix bag of job-hungry thesps will surely be knocked out (pun very much intended) by the appearance of legendary boxer, Jake La Motta. As a villain’s henchman, the original Raging Bull turns in a performance so woefully inadequate that you’ll be wishing for one of his roundhouse punches just to get it all over with.</p><p>Finally, as a ridiculous cherry on the top, Fifties Hollywood beefcake <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001514/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Victor Mature</a> wanders in from a busy retirement on the golf course to half-heartedly appear in a solitary scene. Less hole-in-one: more one-scene-and-gone.</p><p><b>Winner proves a winner</b></p><p>With such an impenetrable plot and a dog’s breakfast of a cast, Michael Winner would seem a potentially fatal choice to direct this (or frankly any) film.</p><p>Boasting a filmmaking style variously described as “crass”, “primitive” and “suitable for people who like to slow down at traffic accidents”, Bolshie Mike might appear singularly ill-equipped to salvage this project. And yet, it’s his blunderbuss approach that prevents Firepower from being a total disaster.</p><p>With nothing to be gained from engaging with the material, the reliably artless Winner simply ignores it. Instead, he simply stuffs the film with a dizzying kaleidoscope of car chases, gun fights and exotic locations – all meant to distract you from the fact that the whole thing is unfathomable guff.</p><p>And should any viewers find the movie’s sensory assault and lack of narrative sense a bit much, just remember the immortal words of its late director: ‘Calm down, dear.’ Firepower may not make a lick of sense, but it doesn’t lack for spectacle – and it’s certainly never boring.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></p><p>After kidnapping the Mr Big Industrialist, Coburn makes his getaway pursued by the villains’ henchmen. (Incidentally, by this point it seems utterly unclear which of the ‘twin’ brothers Coburn is meant to be playing, not least to Michael Winner.)</p><p>Luckily, Old Longshanks (or his twin) has anticipated the baddies’ pursuit plans, and cannily placed a series of time-delayed bombs in their vehicles. One of them, as you can doubtless surmise, is a helicopter.</p><p>A hectic chase ensures, and after a few minutes one of the bombs reliably detonates and puts paid to a pursuing car. But that still leaves a helicopter buzzing ominously overhead and a small posse of horse-riding heavies on Coburn’s trail.</p><p>The villains close in and it looks like it’s about to get sticky for Big Jim. Fortunately, with contrived good fortune, the chopper chooses that very moment to blow up. And if that wasn’t lucky enough, the falling debris knocks out the henchmen on horseback. It’s like three cherries lining up on a one-armed bandit.</p><p><b>Exploding helicopter verdict</b></p><p>We get an all too brief shot of the helicopter blowing up, although blowing apart would be a more accurate description. The combusting chopper is clearly an Airfix-quality model, and there’s a noticeable lack of actual fire – though predictably the whole thing is engulfed in blazing flames by the time it crashes to the ground. Having said that, continuity is the least of this film’s problems.</p><p><b>Interesting fact</b></p><p>Apparently, the script for Firepower started life as a Dirty Harry sequel. Clint Eastwood can consider himself very lucky, punk, that he never got embroiled in such a ghastly, giddy mess.</p>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-49921521013424416132020-06-20T11:13:00.001+01:002020-06-20T11:13:46.423+01:00When Time Ran Out<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YaJt6_KRV7OeQ5B5jrth5S-33rL_H71QP6GjCj1Rw-gIVRNkaWvxm4tawB63bOv2B0T9_RqJKfw8_6EIScnNeuNYIl1qZIqplhg2XAt97O79LRiEwRBeplvjKB2AUphXw7jkwausrGA/s560/When+Time+Ran+Out+560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_YaJt6_KRV7OeQ5B5jrth5S-33rL_H71QP6GjCj1Rw-gIVRNkaWvxm4tawB63bOv2B0T9_RqJKfw8_6EIScnNeuNYIl1qZIqplhg2XAt97O79LRiEwRBeplvjKB2AUphXw7jkwausrGA/d/When+Time+Ran+Out+560.jpg" /></a></div>Or, as it should be known, When Time Ran Out... on the disaster film.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's right. When Airport (1969) became a box office smash, it kicked off a decade-long boom in films where ageing Hollywood stars met their melodramatic deaths in elaborately staged set-pieces.</div><div><br /></div><div>For a time, these films were a sure-fire recipe for blockbuster success. But as the Seventies wore on, audiences began to weary of their predictable formula and increasingly daft scenarios. And when this notoriously naff, volcano-themed piece of whimsy showed up, the whole genre finally blew-up like… well, a volcano.</div><div><br /></div><div>Both a critical and commercial catastrophe, the movie stank at the box office and lost millions. It also ended careers. (Notably, one of its stars was so mentally scarred they never referred to it by name again.)</div><div><br /></div><div>Surveying the devastation, Tinseltown bosses collectively pronounced the whole genre dead, and swore never again to make a film like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081747/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">When Time Ran Out (1980)</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>The plot</b></div><div><br /></div><div>When a volcano erupts on a pacific island, it looks very much like the glamourous guests at a nearby luxury hotel will be engulfed by molten magma. Yikes!</div><div><br /></div><div>But fear not! For screen icon Paul Newman is on hand to save the day. With molten lava flowing down from all directions, Old Blue Eyes rallies a small group of survivors and leads them on a perilous journey to safety.</div><div><br /></div><div>Naturally, this being a disaster movie, the escape is complicated by a pressing need from many characters to resolve a giddy mix of personal dramas. (Quite why no one can put off dealing with mom-didn’t-appreciate-me-enough until the crisis is over, is a mystery the genre has never resolved.)</div><div><br /></div><div>With the island swiftly turning to liquid magma, the questions come thick and fast. Who will live? Who will die? And will the two old codgers harbouring a decades-old grudge tearfully reconcile in this moment of peril? At this point, you’d got to think there’s an outside chance they probably will.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>When Time Ran Out…. On The Disaster Film</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This movie’s reputation as a cinematic stinker is well deserved, and its problems - woeful special effects, lamentable soap opera sub-plots, listless action scenes – have been well documented.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, rather than look at why this film is so bad, let’s to delve into how it came to be quite so awful.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>When Contracts Ran Out</b></div><div><br /></div><div>With Paul Newman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons and William Holden, When Time Ran Out boasts no fewer than four Oscar-winning actors.</div><div><br /></div><div>So whatever its flaws, you wouldn’t think the acting would be an issue. And yet there’s a strange, dead-behind-the-eyes quality to each of their performances – almost as if they didn’t want to be there. Which, in fact, they didn’t.</div><div><br /></div><div>You see, none of the garlanded Oscar worthies wanted to be anywhere near this merde-fest; they were all forced into it because of old contracts they’d signed. Newman later admitted it was the only film he ever regretted and refused to even mention its name, referring to it only as ‘that volcano movie’.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>When Confidence Ran Out</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You’d assume that such a major movie with an all-star cast and humungous budget would have top-notch director – so why was TV journeyman James Goldstone at the helm? The short answer: the studio was desperate to avoid giving the reins to the movie’s creator, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000740/?ref_=tt_trv_trv">Irwin Allen</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>You might know Allen as the creative force behind such mega-hits as <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-towering-inferno.html">The Towering Inferno</a> and The Poseidon Adventure. But by this time, his career had taken a double nose-dive – with the bad-cinema classic ,The Swarm, and soggy seafaring sequel Beyond The Poseidon Adventure – so Warner Bros insisted he not direct.</div><div><br /></div><div>Allen’s answer? Hire a pliable stooge like Goldstone, who agreeably sat like a lump in the director’s chair while Allen sneakily pulled all the strings – and produced his third cinematic turkey in a row.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>When Money Ran Out</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Already buckling under the above challenges, the movie finally keeled over and died under the strain of constant studio budget cuts, which forced emergency (and often comedic) cost-saving measures.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, if that tropical island looks a bit like California, that’s because…well, it’s clearly California. And the infamous special effects in the movie were straight out of Blue Peter. As a viewer, it’s hard to cower in the face of a terrifying volcano when it’s fashioned from an old washing-up liquid bottle and some cardboard tubes. You can almost see the sticky-back plastic.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unsurprisingly, the end result was a truly terrible film. And while the pitiful box office takings were bad enough, the death knell of the entire disaster genre sounded just months later when Airplane! (1980), a scalpel-sharp dissection of disaster conventions and clichés, was a massive hit.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Exploding helicopter action</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Given that destruction is at the heart of all disaster movies, it’s no surprise to learn that a helicopter ends up being an early casualty.</div><div><br /></div><div>As magma rolls towards the luxury hotel, the panicked guests look a nearby helicopter for a quick escape. There’s a stampede, and people either cram themselves inside or cling desperately to the landing skids as it takes off.</div><div><br /></div><div>Overloaded, the chopper struggles to remain airborne. Weaving around in the sky for a few moments, it suddenly plunges straight into a cliff and explodes. A case of When Copters Run Out.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Artistic merit</b></div><div><br /></div><div>It’s a short and sweet scene: one moment the whirlybird is spinning around in the sky, the next it’s charging straight into a cliff.</div><div><br /></div><div>The resulting fireball is rendered in far from convincing model-work. But rather than lingering, the camera sensibly cuts quickly to the horrified reactions of those that witnessed the crash.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the plus side, the bunfight to get on the chopper is hugely enjoyable as those lucky enough to be inside kick and punch others trying to join them. Chivalry, it seems, is well and truly dead.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b></div><div><br /></div><div>When Time Ran Out is not the only volcano-themed film to feature an exploding helicopter. Nearly twenty years later, a chopper in <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2011/09/dantes-peak.html">Dante’s Peak</a> crashes after its engine becomes choked with volcanic ash.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Interesting fact</b></div><div><br /></div><div>While the film lost money at the box office (it made just $4m against a $20m budget), it has gone on to make over $500m in the years since. Well, sort of.</div><div><br /></div><div>That’s because Paul Newman used his fee from this financial disaster to launch Newman’s Own, his famous philanthropic range of salad dressings and sauces.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b></div>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-83752617382368661392020-04-28T14:08:00.003+01:002020-04-28T14:08:49.034+01:00Bermuda Tentacles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoG_Dpmibo1E1ZMFhDKOySmBnat551-qZUPTV9MEfE6jZOGS9TCEMnjfYlMciIsMGFHckgGt_TjUL-LbTDVTZebNXW0JdDk7S9KgjsvOBmCz4WHmUYt4vOMuTqEw_pG0Abqv5GMQUv6fE/s1600/Bermuda+Tentacles+560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoG_Dpmibo1E1ZMFhDKOySmBnat551-qZUPTV9MEfE6jZOGS9TCEMnjfYlMciIsMGFHckgGt_TjUL-LbTDVTZebNXW0JdDk7S9KgjsvOBmCz4WHmUYt4vOMuTqEw_pG0Abqv5GMQUv6fE/s1600/Bermuda+Tentacles+560.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
It’s worse than that; it’s shit, Jim.<br />
<br />
When a 2014 monster movie with a fair-sized budget keeps reminding you of a famously wonky and wooden Sixties sci-fi TV series, you know it’s in trouble. But in so many ways – the hammy acting, the risible effects, the disposable extras – this movie just reeks of the original Star Trek series.<br />
<br />
That might not be so bad, if <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3307726/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Bermuda Tentacles (2014)</a> had any charm or character. But whereas Captain Kirk’s old sci-fi classic has gradually aged into beloved status, the only final frontier this new piece of tripe looks likely to surpass is the audience’s patience.<br />
<br />
Even worse, once your mind boldly goes to the Star Trek comparison, you simply can’t shake the association out of your head. As a noted scientific authority once put it: Ye cannae change the laws of physics.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Air Force One hits a giant storm and crash lands in – wait for it – the Bermuda Triangle. And thus the viewer is thrown headlong into one of the biggest mysteries of modern times: why can’t the Presidential plane ever get from A to B intact in a Hollywood movie?<br />
<br />
Onscreen at least, this supposedly failsafe and gigantic piece of kit seems unable to leave the tarmac without getting shot down (White House Down), hijacked (Air Force One), hijacked again (Escape From New York) or shot down again (Big Game). It’s a wonder any real-life President is willing to even go near the thing.<br />
<br />
As Air Force Gone struggles against the raging elements, the President is flung into an escape pod which – movie countdown alert! – only has 12 hours of oxygen. (Hmm, wonder if that will become relevant in a hackneyed kind of ‘race against time’ scenario later on..?) Within minutes, the American Navy is despatched to rescue POTUS. But when they sail into the infamous Bermuda waters, a mysterious, be-tentacled alien lifeform is waiting.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
She’ll be back… The only instantly recognisable star here is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000157/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Linda Hamilton</a>, Big Arnie’s frenemy from the Terminator series. She plays a gruff Admiral, growling and barking orders at everyone within earshot. And to her credit, Leathery Linda does seem genuinely pissed off – but that’s probably less about a commitment to the role and more a genuine anger that her once stellar career has come to appearing in this kind of dreck.<br />
<br />
The rest of the cast seems to have escaped from one of those terrible ‘I Love the Nineties’ shows on Channel 5. First, here’s R’n’B also-ran, Mya, whose solitary chart hit a mere 22 years ago you may dimly remember, if you’re her mum. Daytime soap opera beefcake Trevor Donovan (Days Of Our Lives / 90210) pads out an underwhelming cast with his deeply wooden presence.<br />
<br />
And making Mya look like a Johnny Come Lately, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0743768/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">Ricco Ross</a> – aka Private Frost from Aliens (1986) – takes some time from his busy schedule signing photographs at science fiction conventions to lend a slice of ham to the proceedings.<br />
<br />
<b>Vulcan ridiculous…</b><br />
<br />
This is ostensibly a modern, ocean-based sci-fi movie, but as soon as the action starts, the Star Trek comparisons start coming in thick and tractor beam fast. For one thing, the sets are woefully shaky. And the characters spout so much pseudo-scientific guff (“I want deep sub-surface detection for massive organic life”) you feel it’s only a matter of time before someone broaches the topic of dilethium crystals.<br />
<br />
Naturally, there’s a Trek-style power failure. And as some hapless minion blurts tekky gobbledegook about rerouting the systems, you’re almost willing him to just shout “I've giv'n her all she's got captain, an' I canna give her no more!”<br />
<br />
If all this sounds a bit much, there’s more to come. The Bermuda crew also reprise one of Star trek’s favourite tropes: the wobbly camera scene. You remember how during Klingon ‘attacks’ on the Enterprise, Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew would gamely throw themselves around while the cameraman wobbled the camera? If you enjoyed such scenes, you’ll be wiping a nostalgic tear as our heroes’ awkwardly lurch around during the submarine’s descent to the ocean floor.<br />
<br />
And of course, no cinematic Trek tribute would be complete without a nod to the original show’s ‘red shirt’ phenomenon. On numerous occasions here, the film’s ‘stars’ (and we use that word very advisedly) set out to investigate some danger with a couple of nameless Navy Seals in tow, who may as well have ‘Dead in Two Minutes’ tattooed on their foreheads.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
The fleet searching for the missing President comes under attack from the aquatic threat. One of the titular tentacles flails around in the air until it hits a Navy helicopter that’s flying overhead.<br />
<br />
The blow knocks the helicopter – a Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, fact fans – into another chopper that’s flying alongside. That means the original whirlybird spins out of control onto the deck of the warship, where it explodes.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
Given the shoddiness of much of the film, the explosion isn’t too bad. Though wisely, the director doesn’t linger too long on his handiwork.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
Not, really. We’ve seen tentacled monsters swat helicopters to their deaths in both Hellboy II: The Golden Army and in Skyline.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Ricco Ross’ performance is so forgettable that people keep forgetting his name. His character is interchangeably referred to as Chief Phillips and Captain Phillips, until Mya shows up and calls him Sergeant Phillips. That’s two demotions in an hour.Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-18435596796226688362020-03-07T11:31:00.001+00:002020-03-07T11:31:45.813+00:00Navy Seals vs Zombies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYziXUzgQpCmvXokSJwK548TP9tAVksIjUVwbybicX-Td4CQ2wmdeSZ-ejcuslXJtHOv4nvde8WQZ2PASxGWSSBVwqi5Mx8eYfBOr1MCq_j140OgEugFwDHonT5LNhWOFbzbS9nxj9pY/s1600/Navy+Seals+vs+Zombies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="789" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYYziXUzgQpCmvXokSJwK548TP9tAVksIjUVwbybicX-Td4CQ2wmdeSZ-ejcuslXJtHOv4nvde8WQZ2PASxGWSSBVwqi5Mx8eYfBOr1MCq_j140OgEugFwDHonT5LNhWOFbzbS9nxj9pY/s320/Navy+Seals+vs+Zombies.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>
In hindsight, you do wonder: why did no one think of it sooner?<br />
<br />
After countless variants on the ‘vs Zombies’ formula – Vampires vs Zombies, Cowboys vs Zombies, Cockneys vs Zombies, to name just a few – you’d be forgiven for thinking ghoulish-minded filmmakers were running out of groups to pit against the undead.<br />
<br />
So thoroughly had the zombie barrel been scraped that 2015 even saw the release of Milfs vs Zombies, which seemed almost wilfully terrible. (Although it did have a glorious tagline: ‘They picked the wrong moms to fuck with’.)<br />
<br />
However, in their haste to find ever weirder opponents for the undead, it appears many directors overlooked one screamingly obvious group: Navy Seals.<br />
<br />
Think about it. If you want to guarantee a cinematic slaughterhouse of wholesale violence, what could be better than uncoiling the famously beserk and trigger-happy cream of the American military? These maniacs tot up triple-digit fatalities on peacekeeping missions, so one can only imagine the bedlam when they’re actually authorised to unleash hell with extreme prejudice.<br />
<br />
And should the audience, numbed by all the “Hoo-ra!” histrionics and patriotic flag-waving, end up actively siding with the zombies – well, who cares? Splatter is still guaranteed.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
A team of Navy Seals is sent to rescue the Vice President when he becomes trapped in Louisiana, which is overrun by a newly unleashed zombie horde.<br />
<br />
And, erm, that’s it.<br />
<br />
Admittedly, there is a subplot that involves locating a scientist who might have a vaccine. But that’s basically just an excuse to unleash another round of headshots and limb-chomping.<br />
<br />
So if you like your zombie movies with a side order of satire, subtext or social critique, maybe head over to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. This movie, much like its antagonists, is totally braindead.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
If you hadn’t already guessed – you saw the title, right? - this is a low budget affair. Accordingly, the calibre of the acting talent fits snugly with the bargain basement quality of the script and overall production.<br />
<br />
What star power there is comes courtesy of VHS-era action legend <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001154/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Michael Dudikoff</a> (from the American Ninja series), who here plays a grizzled General masterminding the rescue operation.<br />
<br />
This film marked a comeback for Mikey Duds after he retired from the movie industry in the early Noughties – or more accurately, was retired by the industry.<br />
<br />
Yet fans eager to witness their former hero in action once again will be disappointed. Not because he isn't given a sizeable amount of screen-time. Or that he's lazily phoning-in his performance. No, the problem is you literally can’t see him. Mysteriously, all his scenes take place in a control room so dimly lit you’ll wonder if there was a mid-shoot power cut. What is going on?<br />
<br />
The answer may lie in those aforementioned budgetary constraints. After all, the response to this rapidly spreading zombie pandemic is apparently being managed by two – count ‘em – blokes standing in a small and distinctly wonky-looking ‘nerve centre’, with walls that look like they might topple over if somebody coughs too enthusiastically. So maybe it made sense to keep the lights down.<br />
<br />
<b>Night of the Living Clichés</b><br />
<br />
Readers who’ve made it this far (and thanks, both of you) will doubtless have deduced that <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4511566/">Navy Seals vs Zombies (2015)</a> is not great.<br />
<br />
The ‘characters’ – if we can call them that – come from the hoariest of genre clichés. There’s a rookie Seal with a pregnant gal back home; a survivor nervously hiding a soon-to-be-fatal zombie bite. And most tiresomely of all, there’s a peppy journalist jeopardising everyone’s safety trying to ‘get the story out’.<br />
<br />
(Literally the only bearable thing about this character is that he does finally get his ‘scoop’, when a marauding zombie scoops his innards out.)<br />
<br />
Still, the film does deliver in one surprising way: those are actual Navy Seals you’re watching.<br />
<br />
It’s true. Half the soldiers dropped in to save the Veep are real-life former Navy Seals – and boy, do they look their part. Barrel-chested and bushy-bearded, they have an effortless, man-of-action authenticity that both physically and metaphorically dwarves the lisping thesps playing dress-up alongside them. (“What’s my motivation for holding this gun?”)<br />
<br />
But even these grizzled toughs, while adding verisimilitude, ultimately add to the problem. Because clearly, the price for securing the services of America’s finest was some thudding script-doctoring by the Navy. (Hollywood fact: The US Armed Services routinely pimps out its boys and hardware to film productions, but only in exchange for turning said movies into jingoistic recruiting ads.)<br />
<br />
And so it’s no surprise when one character bleats, “Hey, you’re Navy Seals! I love you guys!” in a no-way-believable manner. Or when another, apropos of nothing, suddenly launches into a prolonged paean to military bravery.<br />
<br />
However, the syrupy shit really hits the fan when one soldier becomes trapped. Before making a heroic last stand, he records a defiant final phone message that’s so filled with “honor”, ‘Gawd”, “freedom” and the American flag, it’s a wonder the zombies didn’t shuffle away in embarrassment.<br />
<br />
Thank you for your service. Now pass the sick bag.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding Helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
After locating the Vice President, the Seals call in a helicopter so they can ‘exfil the package’. (Warning: the movie is awash with such military-speak guff.)<br />
<br />
He’s loaded on to the chopper along with some other survivors, including (natch) the one with the hidden zombie bite.<br />
<br />
After taking off, the whirlybird suddenly begins to fly haphazardly, before disappearing behind some buildings. There’s the sound of a crash and a poorly rendered CGI fireball flickers up.<br />
<br />
The viewer, seemingly the last thing on the director’s mind, sees all this from a distance –so we are left to assume that the passenger ‘turned’ and caused the resulting chaos-cum-crash.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
Ordinarily, Exploding Helicopter becomes vexed when an explosion happens ‘off-camera’. But given the poverty of the special effects displayed elsewhere in this movie, less was probably more.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
Very little. We’ve previously seen zombies cause chopper explosions in the similarly terrible World War Z, which employed 300 times this movie’s budget to gain roughly the same level of entertainment.<br />
<br />
<b>Tagline</b><br />
<br />
The surprisingly clever: “Home of the brave, land of the dead.”<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b>Want someone else's opinion on this film? Then check out the review by our buddy <a href="http://dtvconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2020/01/navy-seals-vs-zombies-2015.html">DTV Connoisseur</a>. </b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-498045587555278672020-02-19T18:43:00.000+00:002020-02-20T20:48:11.367+00:00The Domino Principle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhugsawN-pw-baXVfkualc0pZNuhFnxB9ZubbkeuHOmPOFb5eHXmr6OrDBnAYsw_dwBBKaNmJhycXHD6a99kcsEv4r3b0SxtuS90Ro-fa-9zVfzDfRTv7wdBPjcX29YXo4H27bYVSnqd5Q/s1600/Domino+560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="440" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhugsawN-pw-baXVfkualc0pZNuhFnxB9ZubbkeuHOmPOFb5eHXmr6OrDBnAYsw_dwBBKaNmJhycXHD6a99kcsEv4r3b0SxtuS90Ro-fa-9zVfzDfRTv7wdBPjcX29YXo4H27bYVSnqd5Q/s1600/Domino+560.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Over the years, Exploding Helicopter has seen a good few baffling movies (Memento), some incomprehensible ones (Terence Malick’s Tree Of Life) and a special handful that seem to operate entirely within their own parallel continuum of logic. (Step forward, Ron Howard’s insane papal-nuke-thriller, Angels & Demons.)<br />
<br />
But it turns out these movies were actually models of storytelling clarity, at least in comparison to one infamous work. For there is one particular Seventies conspiracy thriller so bonkers, so defiantly opaque, that it has earned a special place in Exploding Helicopter’s Cryptic Cinema Hall of Infamy. Ladies and gentlemen: meet <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075950/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">The Domino Principle</a> (1977).<br />
<br />
Why even bother with this one? you’re probably not asking. And true, on one level, reviewing such a famously impenetrable mess of a movie may seem like asking for punishment. But when you’ve spent a decade only cataloguing films where helicopters blow up in strange and often unconvincing ways, you get to know a thing or two about fruitless endeavors.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Former army sharp-shooter Roy Tucker (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000432/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Gene Hackman</a>) is quietly serving out a lengthy prison sentence when he gets a visit from two mysterious men.<br />
<br />
They offer to arrange his escape, reunite him with his wife, and set him up with a new life in another country. Only – and maybe step back and take a deep breath, here – there’s a catch.<br />
<br />
In return for his freedom, Tucker must agree to carry out an unspecified job. (And for the sake of simplicity, let’s just clarify now that it’s an assassination.) Obviously, our judicious jailbird is initially reluctant to accept the enigmatic deal, but eventually agrees.<br />
<br />
So far, so kind-of-clear, right? But not so fast: at this point, the whole situation (and the movie itself) quickly starts to spin out of control. And if you’re wondering how it all turns out, join the queue.<br />
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There’s a reason this movie has baffled audiences for over 40 years. And by the time you finish reading this review, chances are you’ll also be scratching your head and reaching for the paracetamol.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
The great and grizzly Gene Hackman plays Tucker. Always a compelling screen presence, Big Gene lends his character the intense, coiled rage that is the hallmark of his best work (The French Connection, Unforgiven). But as ever, the question is: just how much ‘acting’ is the famously combustible Hackman actually doing?<br />
<br />
Famous for chewing out directors (he once commanded fey indie darling Wes Anderson to ‘pull up his trousers and act like a man’) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/oct/31/news1">public brawling</a> (even administering one beat-down at the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/celebritynews/9644983/Gene-Hackman-slaps-homeless-man.html">ripe old age of 82</a>), it’s probably fair to say Hackman could start a fight in an empty room – and still claim the other, non-existent guy started it.<br />
<br />
Playing the villains are two of cinema’s perennial bad guys: Richard Widmark and Eli Wallach. Able to effortlessly convey either snake-like charm or sinister menace, the pair spent decades deceiving, duping and double-crossing countless co-stars in their films. In other words, they’re perfectly cast here.<br />
<br />
And fittingly for such a bizarre film, there’s a queasy cameo from a Hollywood star of old, Mickey Rooney. The pint-sized actor came to fame in the Thirties, as a child starring opposite a pig-tailed Judy Garland in a string of wholesome musicals.<br />
<br />
Viewers with fond memories of those golden-era offerings will therefore be more than a little perturbed by his appearance here. Cast as Hackman’s foul-mouthed cellmate, he gleefully lusts after teenage girls while continuously picking at his chest hair. No wonder Hackman decided to escape.<br />
<br />
<b>Confusion reigns</b><br />
<br />
Why is The Domino Principle such an obtuse film? Some context might help here. The film was part of a cycle of conspiracy thrillers that emerged in the early Seventies.<br />
<br />
But coming in the wake of a wave of increasingly complex and twisty classics – such as The Parallax View, All The Presidents Men and The Conversation – the producers were clearly worried. How do you surprise an audience now used to the idea of shadowy cabals of men with nebulous agendas undermining, overthrowing, or bending governments to their will?<br />
<br />
In retrospect, their answer was simplicity itself: just never explain the conspiracy.<br />
<br />
That’s right. Instead of learning, over the course of the film, the identities, motives or aims of the main players, here, the audience learns precisely nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. When the curtain comes down, the viewer is just as confused as they were 20 minutes in when their headache first started forming.<br />
<br />
So, to recap: we never find out who Gene Hackman had to kill. We don’t know why they needed to be killed. We have no idea who is behind the conspiracy. And even Wallach and Widmark, the front-men for the mysterious murder plot, don’t know the answers. As they’re at pains to point out during the film: they’re just cogs in the machine. It’s not their job to know.<br />
<br />
No doubt, the producers were initially delighted with their own cunning. What could be cleverer than a conspiracy so vast and complex that no one involved – including the actors, the director and the poor audience – ever understands it? That’d be, like, totally radical man!<br />
<br />
Er, no it wouldn’t. Actually – and Exploding Helicopter can’t emphasise this enough – it’d be blood-boilingly annoying.<br />
<br />
Imagine a stand-up comedian telling a long-winded joke, then walking off stage just before the punchline. A cordon bleu chef painstakingly preparing a beautiful meal before your eyes, then flipping it into the bin. A Scooby Doo episode where at the end, the whole gang simply says, “Nah, we dunno who did it’, and drives off.<br />
<br />
The whole point of a mystery movie is that it gets solved at the end. But not this one. The Domino Principle is all conspiracy and no thriller. Ultimately, the real mystery is how this piece of cinematic bobbins got made.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
While the overall film may miss the target, it at least hits the bullseye with its exploding helicopter.<br />
<br />
The action occurs after the big hit. Hackman escapes the scene in a helicopter, flying a short distance before landing and transferring to a getaway car.<br />
<br />
To cover their tracks, a waiting villain throws a very fetching leather briefcase inside the chopper. But this is clearly no ordinary piece of luggage, because everyone suddenly starts running and a few seconds later the helicopter explodes. Kaboom!<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
We’re big fans of this chopper fireball. The eruption of flame is spectacular, and wreckage is impressively flung through the air.<br />
<br />
One particularly striking aspect is just how close the actors are to the pyrotechnics. They’re only a few feet away when chopper blows up. In fact, they look to be in real danger of being horribly maimed by flying shrapnel.<br />
<br />
Such is the apparent disregard for the safety of the cast, it’s worth considering whether there was a cock-up in the timing of the detonation. Or maybe Hackman had managed to piss off the crew so much that, by this point, they were literally trying to kill him. Probably the latter.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
The method of destruction here is unusual, but not unique. A helicopter was blown up by a bomb disguised as a piece of luggage in Diamonds Are Forever.<br />
<br />
<b>Best critic’s comment</b><br />
<br />
“I felt sorry for the actors wasted on such a stupid script…but I felt sorrier for myself for having to sit through it.” Ruth Batchelor, LA Free Press<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Gene Hackman is Hollywood’s emperor of bad career choices and his “I’ll take the money” approach to filmmaking is to thank for his appearance here. Roles in Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were among the many better films he snubbed in order to make this slice of cinematic merde, simply because the paycheck was bigger.<br />
<br />
<b>Review by: Jafo</b><br />
<br />
<b>Still want more? Then check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on The Domino Principle. Listen via <a href="http://apple.co/2CIECan">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://spoti.fi/2kXacOk">Spotify</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/2mtxg7N">Acast</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/2DgoVbw">Stitcher </a>or wherever you get your pods. Alternatively, just hit play below...</b><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="208" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/9538663?autoplay=false" width="504"></iframe>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-19499457478095408032020-01-30T20:55:00.000+00:002020-02-20T20:48:44.085+00:00Bad Boys For Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioS9LDcOaeCRnbGQzkTtC-NdHbef7sj5Zn1LHFXm6yH2FJtP0Z5zEt1KvoK2CtljpxHQPfdwQCLTfGOfwryDm7ylD8LRGFUfwxMKrqFZtmOUmQGhaHVtKiCn4DToh-rY76BkyvcJTJsUc/s1600/Bad+Boys+For+Life+560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="314" data-original-width="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioS9LDcOaeCRnbGQzkTtC-NdHbef7sj5Zn1LHFXm6yH2FJtP0Z5zEt1KvoK2CtljpxHQPfdwQCLTfGOfwryDm7ylD8LRGFUfwxMKrqFZtmOUmQGhaHVtKiCn4DToh-rY76BkyvcJTJsUc/s1600/Bad+Boys+For+Life+560.jpg" /></a></div>
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That’s right: for life. Or maybe watching this movie just seemed that long.<br />
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After a hiatus of 17 years, the ageing Miami cop duo – stretching the word ‘boy’ to its very outermost limits – bring their franchise creaking along for a third instalment that looks every bit as bloated and weather-worn as its stars.<br />
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This time, a wronged criminal is out for revenge. Will Smith is out to prove he’s still got it. And Martin Lawrence, by the look of him, has mostly been out for dinner. Of course, there’s the usual crash, bang and pyrotechnic wallop, and a supporting crew of millennial police moppets for eye-candy purposes.<br />
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But clearly, no-one was asking for this movie, so why are we here? With its crashing pratfalls, shouty jokes and swaggering self-confidence, it resembles nothing more than a drunk, uninvited guest at a party. And for Exploding Helicopter, it was just about as welcome.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
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Years ago, detective Mike Lowrey (Smith) busted a Mexican drug lord, who later died in prison. Now his villainous widow has been sprung from clink by her equally violent son, and they’re both bent on revenge.<br />
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Early on, the young tyke shoots Smith point blank in the chest three times. Certain death, surely? But no: following a few montage scenes of fellow cop Marcus Burnett (a king-sized Lawrence) tearfully wobbling his jowls beside his partner’s hospital bed, the not-so-Fresh Prince is apparently good as new.<br />
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Initially, Lawrence refuses to join Smith in hunting down the baddies, until they also kill the pair’s police captain. Only then – and Exploding Helicopter only hopes you’re sitting down for this next revelation – he agrees to team up one last time.<br />
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Joined by an incredibly hot young police crew who, like, use computers and stuff, they hunt down the evil Mexicans via a predictable cavalcade of car chases, punch-ups, weak puns and face-to-face sub-machine gun battles in which literally nobody gets shot. (Hey, there’s that ‘15’ certificate to think about here…) Then it all culminates in a Mexico City showdown.<br />
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<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Someone once observed that, by the final season of Baywatch, David Hasselhoff had the biggest breasts on the show. It’s not a kind line, but it does underscore a valid point – old actors replaying their younger roles is not generally a good look.<br />
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Who could forget a corseted and bewigged William Shatner in the Star Trek movie series? Or the supposedly immortal Christopher Lambert growing greyer and jowlier throughout the Highlander series? And in last year’s Last Blood, Sly Stallone, largely filmed skulking around subterranean tunnels, looked like nothing more than a freshly embalmed Egyptian mummy.<br />
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So let’s not forget, the ‘boys’ in question here are Will Smith (51) and 54-year-old Martin Lawrence. At least Smith, blessed with that Tom-Cruise-style steely self-discipline common among deeply weird Scientologists, still looks in prime condition.<br />
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Lawrence however, all wattles and artfully cut dark clothes trying to hide his pot belly, appears to have enjoyed every one of his five-plus decades. Exploding Helicopter is not sure how many dollars he got paid for this movie, but he’s apparently storing them in his cheeks.<br />
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However, the real major crime in this movie is how Joe Pantoliano, an effortlessly charismatic actor who was unmissable throughout two seasons of The Sopranos, is tasked with playing a lazy blend of Angry Police Captain™ and Proud Paternal Figure (“He’s like a son to me”). Now, that’s criminal.<br />
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<b>Don’t forget the kids…</b><br />
<br />
Ah yes, the millennials. Remember how <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-expendables-3.html">The Expendables 3</a> added a buff, young supporting crew to the mix, so we wouldn’t have to spend two hours staring at a bunch of septuagenarians trying to hold their stomachs in? This movie does the same, sprinkling in a deeply uninteresting quartet of what we suppose should technically be called ‘characters’.<br />
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There’s a saucy leaderene to smoulder at Smith, a cocky young rebel to bristle against him, a musclebound hunk who – get this! – is a bit of a nerd, and a fit young woman who, er, has an interesting haircut. It comes to something when you’re left complaining that a movie lacks the nuance of Stallone’s later work, but this is where we find ourselves.<br />
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<b>The opposite of chemistry</b><br />
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This Bad Boys series makes much of the supposed schtick between Smith and Lawrence, but watching the pair together is utterly wearying. All they do is shout banalities and clichés at each other, as if the booming volume and simple ‘bro’-ness of it all will obscure any lack of wit.<br />
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With Lawrence, in particular, almost every line he bellows is a clunking piece of exposition or plot point: Hey, best buddy. Remember that time you were working that case and…. It’s pretty artless stuff.<br />
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Also, for two friends who have supposedly been inseparable since childhood, they often sound bemused to hear even the most rudimentary facts about each other. At one point, Lawrence learns that his brother from another mother once spent almost a year working deep undercover for a Mexican drug cartel. What: he didn’t notice at the time?<br />
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Admittedly, action movies are not generally big on character – and nobody’s expecting Kramer vs Kramer here. But the writing is deeply shoddy even by base, generic standards.<br />
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<b>The trouble with Mexicans</b><br />
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It’s worth noting that, while American movies appear terribly woke these days, Mexicans remain the last minority group that it’s still kind of okay to go full <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc1u5RpdPeY&feature=youtu.be">Jim Davidson-racist</a> on, particularly in shoot-em-up yarns like this one. Thus, the drug lord’s widow is more a demented, murderous pastiche than a real person, and – get this – is also rumoured to be an actual witch.<br />
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Perpetually stuck in either hissy whisper or screeching mode, she’s pure pantomime. In characterisation terms, it’s the equivalent of portraying a Native-American woman in face-paint and making “Woo! Woo!” noises while tapping her mouth and dancing round a fire.<br />
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It’s a bizarre phenomenon, particularly given the spending power of the US’ native Hispanic population, but just seems to be one of those things – like the <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackDudeDiesFirsthttps://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlackDudeDiesFirst">black character dying first</a> in every horror flick.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
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So, to the final showdown in a ruined building in Mexico City. It is, natch, a dark and stormy evening. (Such conditions are famously CGI-friendly.) And let’s cut to the quick here: the building handily contains the kind of glass roof and huge central atrium that would be perfect for a crashing helicopter to slowly crash-spin down, almost hitting all the main characters along the way.<br />
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So, what do you think happens? After much punching, kicking, shooting and chasing (with nary a bruise visible on the main characters), a chopper heads in to pick up the widow and Lawrence shoots the pilot. The whirlybird comes careering in through the roof and spirals downwards to the ground, where it briefly lies in state before bursting into flames.<br />
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<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
Let’s look, shall we? Chopper implausibly brought down by protagonist with small firearm on a roof. Check. Comes crashing down very, very slowly, usefully eating up camera time. Check. Almost hits every major character on the way down. Check. Comes to a whirring halt inches away from protagonist. Check. Eruption of sudden CGI fireball. Check.<br />
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If they were handing out awards for originality, this movie would not be in the running. In fairness, this movie is unlikely to be in the running for any awards, unless the Razzies come calling.<br />
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<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
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Recognise the scraggly-looking emcee in the wedding scene of Lawrence’s screen daughter, the one looking like the kind of ageing surfer who wouldn’t be permitted within 100 metres of a school? That’s Michael Bay, the famously long-winded and pyrotechnic director of the first two Bad Boys movies.Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-68813987279703625372019-12-13T15:09:00.000+00:002019-12-13T15:09:16.786+00:00Hijack!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“Breaker, breaker, this is Bulldog headin’ South on old Double Nickel. Anyone out there got their ears on?”<br />
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Ah, the Seventies! When sideburns were long, trousers flared, and the world couldn’t get enough of truck drivers.<br />
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It’s true. During the decade, driving a vehicle for a living implausibly became the epitome of cool. Cinemas were gridlocked with films such as Smokey and the Bandit, Breaker! Breaker! and Convoy. Radios blared with the twangy sound of ‘truck-driving country’. And millions of people inexplicably tried to decode the mysteries of truckers’ CB radio slang.<br />
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Trying to explain such a strange moment in human culture is beyond the purview of this humble website. So instead, let’s ‘break 1-9’ and remain ‘cool on the stool’ to review <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070178/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_8">Hijack! (1973)</a>. (And no, Exploding Helicopter doesn’t know what any of that means either).<br />
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<b>The plot</b><br />
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Two truck drivers are hired to transport an obligatory ‘mysterious cargo’ across the country. They’re told it’s a top-secret job on behalf of the government, and for reasons of security they can’t be told the contents of their load.<br />
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At first they’re reluctant to take on the job, until they see the big bucks on offer. But they quickly (and predictably) come to rue the decision. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, a ruthless gang of villains – intent on stealing their mysterious cargo – starts giving chase as soon as they’re ‘ten-four, good buddy’ing down the freeway.<br />
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Can our heroes of highway haulage safely complete their risky run? Will the baddies succeed in their fiendish plans? Do viewers have the slightest hope of understanding a fifth of the CB-flavoured gobbledygook being spouted throughout? Probably not.<br />
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<b>The cast</b><br />
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In the film’s proverbial driving seat is TV legend, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0418148/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">David Janssen</a>. The passing years and the actor’s premature death make it easy to forget what a huge star he was during the Sixties and Seventies. His trademark show – The Fugitive – was a colossal hit, pulling in a mind-boggling 72% of the American population for its climatic episode, a now unimaginable figure.<br />
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Riding shotgun – so to speak - is grizzled character actor, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0943978/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm">Keenan Wynn</a>. A familiar, whiskery presence in countless westerns, he’s perfectly cast here as Janssen’s rough n’ ready driving buddy, always ready with a salty one-liner and a two-fisted approach to problem-solving.<br />
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It’s worth noting that poor Janssen, a raging alcoholic and heavy smoker, was just 42 when he made this movie but looked a good 15 years older. His 27-year-old romantic interest Lee Purcell meanwhile, scarcely looked out of her teens, which lends a distinctly queasy and implausible flavour to their interactions.<br />
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<b>Hijacking your time</b><br />
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Exploding Helicopter is going to cut to the chase with this review: Hijack! is not a very good film.<br />
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What promises to be a high-octane thriller, filled with burning rubber and roaring engines, in fact turns out to be a pedestrian drama that never gets out of first gear. Despite a brief 75-minute run-time, it still manages to spin its wheels through several torpor-inducing sections. And it’s so blandly staged that you wonder if the director fell asleep at the wheel.<br />
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Exploding Helicopter couldn’t help but compare this duff automotive offering unfavourably to a very similar TV movie made just a few years earlier, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067023/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1">Duel (1971)</a>.<br />
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The two films share an almost identical premise (one features a truck pursuing a car, the other a car pursuing a truck), and both featured a big television star (David Janssen vs Dennis Weaver). But while Duel is now considered a minor classic, Hijack! is rightly all but forgotten. That’s probably because a young Steven Spielberg directed Duel, while Hijack! was helmed by a TV hack, Leonard Horn, who churned out Sixties genre fodder such as Mission: Impossible and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Or in this case, Voyage to the Bottom of the Barrel.<br />
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Still, the film does have some high points. The villains’ wardrobe is fabulous. Their leader – a thick-set, middle aged man – wears an electric pea-green suit that even Elvis in his Las Vegas, coke-snorting and crotch-thrusting heyday would’ve baulked at.<br />
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Not to be outdone, his top henchman sports a pair of trousers featuring an eye-bleedingly complex pattern of purples and mauves (perhaps a vain attempt to distract you from the fact he’s as bald as a coot). Clearly, these master criminals were not particularly concerned about remaining incognito.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
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Having spent so much time stuck on the highways and byways of Texas, the movie takes a pleasing aerial turn at its climax.<br />
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Following several failed attempts to stop Janssen, the villains take to a helicopter to stop the troublesome trucker.<br />
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An onboard gunman fires at the lorry with a machinegun, peppering the windshield with bullets. As the vehicle grinds to a halt, it appears that they’ve finally got their man. The helicopter lands so the villains can seize their prize. But wait: Janssen’s not dead! He’s just been lying doggo.<br />
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He shifts the truck into gear and rams the parked whirlybird, which instantly explodes. The lorry roars away badly dented, on-fire and with Janssen looking badly shaken by his ordeal – or perhaps just worrying about his no claims bonus.<br />
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<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
It’s often mentioned on this blog that helicopters in Seventies movies were remarkably combustible – the slightest graze could have them erupting into a fireball. And so it is here. While the truck gives the chopper a fair old shunt, there’s no earthly reason for it to violently explode.<br />
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Mustn’t grumble though, because it’s not every day you get to see a helicopter blow up after a vehicular game of British Bulldog.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
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The chopper fireball in Hijack! is unusual, but not unique. Chuck Norris’ trucker tale, Breaker! Breaker!, also sees a is destroyed in similar fashion.<br />
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<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
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Despite being a small-screen star, David Janssen has appeared in a surprising number of films with an exploding helicopter. Check out his work in The Green Berets, Birds Of Prey and High Ice.<br />
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<b>Review by: Jafo</b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-59722559275061891882019-11-08T09:17:00.001+00:002019-11-08T09:17:17.898+00:00Terminator: Dark Fate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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By this point, “I’ll be back” has started to sound less like a promise and more like a grim cinematic threat.<br />
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Imagine, for a moment, walking out of a screening of the original “Terminator” in 1984 and being told that the film’s stars would still be playing those action roles 35 years later.<br />
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That a waxen-faced, 72-year-old Arnie Schwarzenegger and a profoundly haggard Linda Hamilton (63) would still be hobbling around in biker leathers, toting over-sized guns and spouting inanities about ‘holes in der fabric of tiiime…’ You’d find the prospect more incredible than the movie you’d just seen.<br />
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And yet here we are. It’s 2019, and Arnie is back doing his shtick as everyone’s favourite T-100. To paraphrase Michel Biehn in the original film: “The Terminator franchise is out there. It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, and it absolutely will not stop until you are dead (bored of these endless sequels).”<br />
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<b>The Case of the Missing Movies</b><br />
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You know how the Terminator movies often end with a knackered-looking robot being slowly lowered into a huge smelting vat? Well, that’s apparently what the makers of Dark Fate decided to do with T3, Salvation and Genisys.<br />
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With James Cameron back in the driving seat as producer, this new movie follows directly on from the last half-decent Terminator film – <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2011/07/terminator-2-judgment-day.html" target="_blank">T2: Judgment Day</a> – and unblushingly pretends that nearly three decades’ worth of increasingly confusing sequels simply never happened. (If only the poor audience was afforded the same luxury.)<br />
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<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
But even with such radical surgery, the plot of this movie is still a mess – hurriedly tying up loose ends and conjuring up whole new story arcs with scraps of cranky exposition. It starts with a flashback in which annoying teen, John Connor – the original saviour of the world, remember – is casually killed by a CGI-young Arnie. (In other words, everything that was achieved in the first two movies was a complete waste of time.) The action then clunks over to Mexico, where a new ‘good’ Terminator and obligatory liquid-metal bad guy both arrive in search of the latest saviour, a feisty young auto-worker.<br />
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Naturally, within five minutes there’s a Terminator fight and car chase. Linda Hamilton turns up, armed with a massive bazooka and, even more worryingly for the viewer, yet more nigh-unlistenable exposition. Then they all go to visit Arnie, now living incognito as a curtain salesman called Carl. (Yes, you did just read that correctly.) The bad guy finds them again. There’s another fight. Then another, on a plane. Then it’s on to the obligatory climactic fisticuffs in a giant industrial setting. And by this point, the action has essentially morphed – Terminator liquid metal-style – back into the first two movies.<br />
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You’ve almost got to admire the studio’s unabashed intent to put on a karaoke-style tribute to the franchise’s glory days, but the result should be more coherent. Apparently, new director Tim Miller and the famously combustible Cameron had radically different ideas for the script and did not get along. Word is they essentially waged a Hollywood jihad on each other as they wrestled for creative control, and you can see the results in the lumpy storytelling and uneven tone.<br />
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<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
However, the studio did manage to muster some innovation with its cast. Showing some serious post-#metoo savvy, they decided to feature three female leads. In theory, this was a good idea. The franchise has had more than its fair share of macho meatheads – Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, the abominable Jai Courtney – so switching chromosomes felt like a fresh and bold move. Unfortunately, all the main roles have been woefully underwritten and the actors themselves are largely terrible.<br />
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The ‘good’ Terminator – a genetically enhanced human, this time – is played by gangly-limbed tomboy, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4496875/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Mackenzie Davis</a>, who is great at ass-kicking but otherwise seems totally lost, unsure whether to emote or act tough. Playing the chosen-one-who-mustn’t-be-killed, Hispanic actress Natalia Reyes alternately bleats and wails and gets angry, but all to no discernible purpose. Only Leathery Linda is able to instil her character with a bit of steely resolve, spitting out withering asides and giving everyone the stink-eye.<br />
<br />
As always, Big Arnie’s performance seems stuck between acting like a robot and being the robotic actor that he really is. Gabriel Luna does manage to bring a chilling menace to his role as the new bad terminator, but when the actor being singled out for praise only speaks about 30 words in the whole movie and is basically a CGI-composite for 80 per cent of his scenes, that’s pretty telling.<br />
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<b>Get to the action, for God’s sake…</b><br />
<br />
Luckily, the film-makers seem to have realised what a load of complete bobbins their story and actors were, so opted to throw a boat-load of action at the screen – and the formula largely works.<br />
<br />
Following an opening contretemps in a car factory, the film really gets going with a prolonged (and hugely destructive) giant lorry chase along a freeway. And while, post-Matrix, this kind of scene is becoming a little too familiar, there’s a lot of stunts-and-explosions creativity on display.<br />
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Later, the gang somehow find themselves locked up in an immigration holding facility, until Old Liquid Stabby Arms turns up and starts slicing and dicing his way through everybody. (It’s a wonder Trump hasn’t tried to hire him.)<br />
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From then on, it’s basically non-stop action. The extended dust-up inside an airborne C-130 is pretty rousing stuff, then it’s a hair-raising fall to earth in a Jeep attached to a wonky parachute, followed by two minutes avoiding soggy murder at the bottom of a lake and a chase across a dam. As mentioned, the climactic battle takes place in a ma-hoosive industrial plant handily equipped with plenty of Terminator-unfriendly materials. In short, it’s a full-on barrage of blows and bullets.<br />
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<b>…because it might stop them speaking. </b><br />
<br />
Exploding Helicopter has witnessed some truly appalling guff during its decade-long existence, but certain talky scenes here might well make the blog’s Mount Rushmore of Terrible Exposition. They are epically, finger-gnawngly bad. In one rambling early scene, where the main players are meant to be establishing themselves while holed up at a motel, you can actually see that chunks of dialogue have been overdubbed in post-production. And in the screening attended by Exploding Helicopter, a couple of Linda’s angry, gun-totin’ “Die, Metal Motherfucker!’ lines were met with open guffaws, which is never a promising sign.<br />
<br />
But things truly fall through the floor when Arnold the Reformed T-100 starts waffling on about his wife and kid, and finding ‘ver beauty in hoo-man liiife’. It’s a monstrously misjudged scene, which the Teutonic Timber is not close to being able to deliver. You can almost picture Tim Miller sat behind the camera, head in hands, while Arnie rote-reads his moving soliliquy with all the delicacy and touch of a Speak-Your-Weight machine. It may well be the worst individual scene you’ll see on screen this year.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Two thirds of the way through the film, our heroes make their way to a military base to collect an incredibly powerful macguffin-I-mean-weapon, handily packaged in a case small enough to qualify as carry-on baggage with RyanAir. But wait: here comes Mr Liquid Metal in a helicopter! Arnie and pals board the tailgate of a lumbering C-130 military plane, and as it takes off they shoot at the pursuing chopper. The evil terminator leaps from his damaged chopper on to the tailgate of the plane, eager for some metallic mayhem. Meanwhile, the now pilotless helicopter explodes, hitting the runway and rolling over multiple times.<br />
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<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
As you might expect in a movie that cost $185 million, everything looks fairly realistic and exciting. But there’s so much other stuff going on during this sequence – speeding vehicles, falling masonry, speeding terminators – that not enough time is devoted to relishing the true glory of the helicopter explosion.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Terminator: Dark Fate was originally planned as the first offering in a new trilogy. But the cataclysmic box office showing (even the famously undiscerning Chinese audience, so often the saviour of mediocre Hollywood movies, has turned its collective nose up at it) means that it may finally be time for Arnie to say Hasta le Vista, Baby.Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-79722186317247948462019-10-25T12:52:00.000+01:002019-10-25T12:52:02.048+01:00The Diamond Mercenaries<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguSVGntou3OC4G-QIDF6D0e2JqdaPOa6oGD1LI2ddVvRzeiwto1T8NVI7iuNEj2nwi2wq7aYQZ4bP3sY6VMe_Vf5pxMs2SWtDdMlYIm0cX55nAcAstdtg0Yl1SIgpnT5ooBTZ1HcY7EQc/s1600/Diamond+Mercenaries.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguSVGntou3OC4G-QIDF6D0e2JqdaPOa6oGD1LI2ddVvRzeiwto1T8NVI7iuNEj2nwi2wq7aYQZ4bP3sY6VMe_Vf5pxMs2SWtDdMlYIm0cX55nAcAstdtg0Yl1SIgpnT5ooBTZ1HcY7EQc/s320/Diamond+Mercenaries.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
The Seventies were a golden era for heist movies. Back then, filmmakers spoiled us with a myriad of variations on the traditional stick-em-up. We had Sam Peckinpah’s gritty The Getaway, George Roy Hill’s stylish caper The Sting, and Sidney Lumet’s moving Dog Day Afternoon.<br />
<br />
But naturally, Exploding Helicopter is not reviewing one of those illustrious efforts. Instead, you’ll be getting the lowdown on The Diamond Mercenaries (1976) – almost the very definition of a run-of-the-mill hack-job – which was directed by cinematic journeyman, Val Guest.<br />
<br />
The reason for this is fairly simple. It appears that there are good heist movies, and then heist movies with exploding helicopters in them. Like a Great Dane and a Chihuahua, the two entities don’t tend to mix.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
A team of mercenaries plot an audacious raid on a seemingly impregnable diamond mine. But when rumours of the heist reach the owners, they bring in their top security man to foil the raid.<br />
<br />
The stage is then set for a battle of wits. Can our merry band of thieves pull off their daring robbery? Or will the sly security chief outfox his prey before they steal the gems?<br />
<br />
To find out, you’ll either have to watch the film or keeping reading this review. (Assuredly, both will be a terrible waste of your time, but at least reading this drivel won’t take you an hour and half.)<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Heading the cast – in more ways than one – is the late, great, extremely follically-challenged <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001699/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm" target="_blank">Telly Savalas</a>, a monumental TV star in the Seventies. (Heck, he was even named after the television.) Known universally for his role as the cue-ball-headed cop, Kojak, Big Tel here plays the security chief tasked with preventing the robbery.<br />
<br />
It’s a tricky job, and not made any easier by having to wear an eye-melting selection of garish Seventies shirts. (Exploding Helicopter’s particular favourite is a hallucinogenic emerald green number with, yes, owls splattered all over it.)<br />
<br />
Starring alongside our top baldy sex symbol is Sixties counter-culture icon, Peter Fonda, who features as a diamond mine employee charged with infiltrating the gang. The Easy Rider and LSD enthusiast cruises through the film with a blissed-out cool that suggests he might have smuggled a healthy-sized collection of happy pills onto the set. Or perhaps he just stared at Telly’s shirt for too long.<br />
<br />
You’ll likely notice a couple of other famous faces among the criminal clique, some more welcome than others. Christopher Lee – everyone’s favourite blood-sucking vampire – pops up as a poetry-reading British soldier gone bad.<br />
<br />
And speaking of creepy men who stick sharp objects into young women: everyone’s least favourite acquitted murderer, OJ Simpson, also squeezes in a guest appearance. The “Juice” is famously a very poor actor (he struggled mightily with the role of ‘innocent person’ at his own trial, for example) and he’s on typically bobbins form here. Bleurgh.<br />
<br />
<b>A theft of your time</b><br />
<br />
Heist movies have been reliably entertaining audiences for decades, by following a very simple three-point formula.<br />
<br />
First, show the team – generally a ragbag assortment of misfits – being brought together. Second, outline the painstaking preparations for the big ‘job’. And third, deliver an exciting finale where the robbery is carried out in all its elaborate detail.<br />
<br />
Really, it’s a fool-proof plan. Or at least, it was until director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0346436/?ref_=tt_ov_dr" target="_blank">Val Guest</a> started tinkering with it.<br />
<br />
So, instead of seeing the gang recruited, the criminal coven in The Diamond Mercenaries comes ready-formed. And their preparations for the job? That involves nothing more than some desultory leaning over a table, looking at a giant map. Compelling drama, this is not.<br />
<br />
Mercifully, things do improve once the heist begins – or more precisely, goes completely tits up. Once the raid is rumbled, the last half hour transforms into a veritable action bonanza.<br />
<br />
The gang have to shoot their way out of the diamond mine, before making their getaway in a Jeep. This sets-up an exciting desert-set car chase, with each side trading gunfire as vehicles race across the sand dunes.<br />
<br />
But this climactic surge of excitement is, frankly, too little too late. Ultimately, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073241/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">The Diamond Mercenaries</a> is no 24-carat sparkler. It is a very dim gem, indeed. Perhaps they should have named it The Diamante Mercenaries.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
All this brings us to what should be the crown jewel of every film: the exploding helicopter. This conflagration actually occurs at the start of the film, during a sequence designed to establish the formidable defences of the diamond mine.<br />
<br />
What happens: a couple of criminals are attempting to sneak in, when their presence is detected. Natch, a helicopter (a Bell Jet Ranger, fact fans!) is despatched to investigate.<br />
<br />
As the chopper flies overhead, one of the intruders fires a solitary rifle shot at it. And before you can say, “Surely a single small calibre bullet is never going to damage a helicopter…” POOF! The whole thing disappears so magically fast you’ll be looking for David Copperfield’s name in the end credits.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
This singularly underwhelming helicopter explosion is a strong example of a phenomenon that regularly plagued films of this vintage: spontaneous combustion.<br />
<br />
You’d think a vehicle robust enough to fly and carry multiple people would be able to absorb a reasonable amount of small-arms fire before being fatally damaged. And yet, during the Seventies, you basically only needed to sneeze in the general direction of a helicopter before it would erupt in flames. They really did seem to explode at the slightest provocation<br />
<br />
Presumably, film audiences of that era were simply an impatient bunch and overly eager to get to the bit where everything blew up. And so filmmakers gave ‘em what they wanted. But looking back, maybe someone should have mentioned that anticipation is half the pleasure.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Obviously, nothing about the movie itself is interesting. But the cast and crew of this yarn do have a spookily high number of connections to the James Bond franchise.<br />
<br />
Both Christopher Lee and Maud Adams appeared in The Man With The Golden Gun. Telly Savalas played 007’s cat stroking nemesis Blofeld in On Her Majesties’ Secret Service. And Val Guest was one of the many directors who worked on the Sixties Bond parody Casino Royale.<br />
<br />
Eagle-eared listeners will also identify a further connection to the famous British spy series. That’s because the dulcet tones of Robert Rietty can be heard providing the voices for several of the supporting characters. Dubbed ‘the man with a thousand voices’, Rietty memorably voiced Emilio Largo in Thunderball, and Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice, as well as many other minor characters throughout the series.<br />
<br />
<b>Review by: Jafo</b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-53101430253481468982019-09-19T19:53:00.002+01:002019-09-19T19:53:41.617+01:00The Park Is Mine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVjpUrb2ZEATcrUkEePJFgPyn2WAp1ixatOTW7GGhHhyrApPWo6U3o8VloUI8QXg0bhjnw3gI-qJwrWtQyx0hkXGbchy7qdBm_S6xQmdGftwsBHRqTpmHDpfda1HLODyu-ecO-JMb4cco/s1600/Park+Is+Mine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1050" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVjpUrb2ZEATcrUkEePJFgPyn2WAp1ixatOTW7GGhHhyrApPWo6U3o8VloUI8QXg0bhjnw3gI-qJwrWtQyx0hkXGbchy7qdBm_S6xQmdGftwsBHRqTpmHDpfda1HLODyu-ecO-JMb4cco/s320/Park+Is+Mine.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
Remember that time Tommy Lee Jones played an unhinged Vietnam veteran who leads an armed takeover of New York? No, Exploding Helicopter didn’t either.<br />
<br />
And little wonder. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091724/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Park Is Mine (1986)</a>, which was originally made for Canadian TV, is a curious wee turkey. At first glance, this tale of a ‘Nam soldier going on a violent rampage after being pushed too far looks like just another one of the Rambo rip-offs that plagued the Eighties.<br />
<br />
But wipe away its camouflage paint-smeared exterior and you’ll find a far, far weirder film. Because in this movie, the loon-eyed shouty guy with a bag of explosives is presented not as a violence-crazed domestic terrorist, but a public folk hero.<br />
<br />
And if you’re already confused, there’s bad news on the way: we’ve not even reached the plot yet.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Take a deep breath, now. Disgruntled Vietnam veteran, Mitch (<a href="https://www.allmovie.com/artist/tommy-lee-jones-p36238" target="_blank">Tommy Lee Jones</a>), gets a posthumous letter from an old war buddy who’s just committed suicide, containing plans for a paramilitary takeover of New York’s iconic Central Park. The dead pal asks Mitch to commandeer the park in order to, er, highlight the way veterans have been forgotten by society.<br />
<br />
So, using a secret weapons cache (natch!), Mitch does exactly that. And when he also fends off a counter-offensive by the NYPD, the public takes to the streets in his support for some reason that is not immediately clear, possibly even to the film’s director.<br />
<br />
Humiliated by this scenario, the dastardly NY deputy mayor secretly orders two mercenaries to kill Mitch. But Mitch instead bumps off the mercenaries, then gives himself up to the police.<br />
<br />
And that’s it.<br />
<br />
At no stage is the question of what the point was of the whole exercise even remotely addressed.<br />
<br />
<b>Drama-free zone</b><br />
<br />
This is confusing stuff, certainly, but unfortunately it’s not in the least dramatic. You see, in order to retain the audience’s sympathy, the film refuses to let Mitch actually hurt anyone. Remember, kids: he’s fighting ‘the man’, not individual people.<br />
<br />
So incredibly, the grizzled vet effects a wholesale paramilitary takeover of Central Park using nothing more lethal than blank ammunition and smoke bombs. (Exactly how the assembled might of the NYPD fails to notice this is just another baffling element that’s never explained.)<br />
<br />
Talking of unsolved mysteries, the film also never really explains quite what Mitch is protesting against or campaigning for. What’s more, he’s only threatening to stay in the park for three days, until Veterans’ Day, so it’s always evident that the whole situation could be peacefully resolved by simply doing nothing.<br />
<br />
Heaping confusion onto unlikelihood, the film gradually veers farther and farther away from a realistic scenario. Like one of the fake bombs used in the takeover, it splutters ineffectually before finally fizzling out.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Tommy Lee Jones was almost 50 before The Fugitive made him ‘Tommy Lee Jones’, the movie star. Before then, the baggy-eyed Texan spent 20 years slogging his way through bit parts and dreck-ish TV movies such as this.<br />
<br />
It’s a testament to TLJ’s future greatness that he’s able to at least partially humanise such a thinly written character as Mitch and make him in half-way sympathetic. The only other familiar face the great <a href="https://www.allmovie.com/artist/yaphet-kotto-p39185" target="_blank">Yaphet Kotto</a> (Alien, Live And Let Die), playing a policeman drafted in to handle the crisis.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Speaking of no drama… About halfway through the movie, police snipers in a helicopter are ordered to fly over the park and take out Tommy Lee Jones. Our Rambo-impersonating hero fires at them, but very pointedly only aims only at the chopper’s tail rotor, damaging the whirlybird.<br />
<br />
Trailing smoke, the damaged helicopter spins around in the air before making an emergency landing. All the crew jumps out to safety long before the aircraft suddenly combusts.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
While there’s a spectacular fireball to enjoy, its impact is defused by the yawn-worthy staging. The helicopter crew takes an absolute age to safely disembark – you’ll see faster exiting in an episode of On The Buses – and only then can the pyrotechnics supervisor trigger the explosion. And frankly, a stationary and empty helicopter explosion isn’t all that interesting to watch.<br />
<br />
<b>Favourite quote</b><br />
<br />
“I have a message for New York. Central Park is mine.”<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by Jafo</i></b><br />
<br />
<b>Still want more? Then have a listen to the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode where we review The Park Is Mine. Find us on <a href="http://apple.co/2CIECan" target="_blank">iTunes</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/2DgoVbw" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="http://bit.ly/2MWVC6a" target="_blank">Acast</a>, <a href="https://spoti.fi/2N0FQHE" target="_blank">Spotify </a>and all the usual place.</b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-90969171020540103582019-08-20T16:41:00.000+01:002019-08-20T16:41:12.944+01:00The Final Countdown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgDL_0vK2797OABRiEgUAt-v_meoR3QCk6uXqAQaXOQj-hf8i1uKiX-uk36wAq3DJ9cQ6b8gDk_Oa0KhIV0h2UP9XnoHYcrhjQQVSXN8rXL-h9VkiZ6OTMY4hUgfB10MbFcPe-LRBWbs/s1600/The+Final+Countdown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1053" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgDL_0vK2797OABRiEgUAt-v_meoR3QCk6uXqAQaXOQj-hf8i1uKiX-uk36wAq3DJ9cQ6b8gDk_Oa0KhIV0h2UP9XnoHYcrhjQQVSXN8rXL-h9VkiZ6OTMY4hUgfB10MbFcPe-LRBWbs/s320/The+Final+Countdown.jpg" width="210" /></a></div>
Along with death, taxes and a Meryl Streep Oscar nomination there is one more certainty in the world: mention the words ‘Final’ and ‘Countdown’ to anyone, and they will start humming: “Der-ne-ner-ner, der-ne-NE-NE-ner…”<br />
<br />
Thanks to Eighties pop-rockers, Europe, the Final Countdown has become synonymous with poodle perms, tinny synths and a horrific, caterwauling chorus. (Which, be in no doubt, was unquestionably used as audio torture during the darkest days at Gitmo.)<br />
<br />
But once upon a time (well, 1980 to be exact), the phrase was perhaps best known as the title of a film with an intriguing time travel premise. So come with Exploding Helicopter, as we spiral backwards through the cinematic time tunnel.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
A present-day American warship is caught in a mysterious electrical storm that sends it spinning back through time to 1941 and – Cor, lummy! – the hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.<br />
<br />
Understandably, the ship’s patriotic captain is all for using the might of his modern-day weaponry to prevent the infamous Japanese attack. But what if – as other conscientious members of his crew point out – this might alter the course of history in unintended and unpredictable ways?<br />
<br />
The stage then is set for some classic time-travel speculation about the consequences of America never entering World War II. Would Europe still be under the jackboot of Nazism? Could the hammer and sickle of Soviet Russia now be fluttering over the continent? Most importantly: might any combination of actions have avoided Trump? And if so, is it too late to maybe give them a shot?<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Topping the bill is human dimple Kirk Douglas. The singularly-chinned thespian plays Captain Yelland, the straight-arrowed military man who has to make sense of his crew’s time-travelling travails.<br />
<br />
Alongside him is Martin Sheen, whose main role is to sport a magnificent plume of beautifully coiffured hair, of the kind not generally seen outside a show ring at Crufts. When not tossing his lustrous locks from side to side – a move that seemingly leaves him in constant danger of a neck injury – his other job is to butt-heads with Douglas about the consequences of meddling with history.<br />
<br />
The rest of the cast is a weirdly eclectic mish-mash of actors. There’s Superfly himself, Ron O’Neal, cult movie impresario <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0442207/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Lloyd Kaufman</a> and Asian utility actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0644902/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Soon-Tek Oh</a> who is cast as (hold on to your seats, folks) a kamikaze crazy Jap.<br />
<br />
Revered character actor Charles Durning also has a role as a shady US Senator, which seems fitting as – if anyone knows about being stuck in time – it’s the prematurely aged Chuck, who has spent the majority of his forty-plus year film career playing crusty old codgers.<br />
<br />
<b>Is this any good?</b><br />
<br />
On one level, The Final Countdown is a terrific idea. The film’s characters have to grapple with a moral quandary centred on one of the defining moments of World War II. And with the fate of the world at stake, the drama literally couldn’t be higher.<br />
<br />
Except. The trouble is, well, we already know how all these events played out. Clearly, everything the characters are worrying about will never come to pass – so there’s no real sense of high stakes, jeopardy nor tension.<br />
<br />
Instead, like the aircraft carrier on which the action takes place, the drama chugs slowly and predictably forward across its 100-minute run-time. Ironically for a film about time travel, it feels an awful lot longer.<br />
<br />
All told, it’s more the final let-down than countdown.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
In order to prevent the space-time continuum being dangerously damaged, Captain Yelland orders that two characters be left stranded on a deserted island (He reasons that they’ll be rescued later, but not before they can raise the alarm about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour).<br />
<br />
The pair are flown out to the isolated outcrop in a helicopter. But when one realises the plan, he grabs a flare gun and threatens the pilot. A struggle breaks out, during which the flare gun goes off, causing the helicopter to explode.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
The chopper fireball is incredibly brief. It’s only on-screen for a couple of seconds before the action cuts away. You can only conclude that they were trying to hide the poverty of their special effects with such a rapid edit.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
The Final Countdown is far from the only example of a time-travel exploding helicopter. Biggles: Adventures in Time (1985) and Samurai Command 1549 (2005) both feature helicopters exploding in eras where they did not belong. This movie, though, made in 1980, has the distinction of being the first one to pull off this feat.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
As the copious amount of military hardware onscreen may suggest, The Final Countdown was made with the full co-operation of the American Navy.<br />
<br />
So pleased were the Navy with the outcome, they included footage in their recruitment drives. It is unlikely, however, that any film schools felt similarly compelled to use excerpts from the movie to promote the virtues of quality movie-making.<br />
<br />
<b>Review by: Jafo</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Check out the review of <a href="https://www.bulletproofaction.com/2017/12/30/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-final-countdown/" target="_blank">The Final Countdown</a> by our friends Bulletproof Action. </b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-83453394459818445222019-07-03T12:45:00.001+01:002019-07-03T12:55:38.984+01:00Sahara<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hpT4TUbCI5fwxYSbiv0iCnZebCIVrIaNIxD32DWgslLyc4sO2Yj9Y8ofUSg_-qY0UIyH3bWfZvVCy5svwNQGjSBW8Ej3ZaeaaUjrv9nXOPOZrK7R0FLSZ5HqCZSPYIyeivl3hzWlFac/s1600/Sahara.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="506" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hpT4TUbCI5fwxYSbiv0iCnZebCIVrIaNIxD32DWgslLyc4sO2Yj9Y8ofUSg_-qY0UIyH3bWfZvVCy5svwNQGjSBW8Ej3ZaeaaUjrv9nXOPOZrK7R0FLSZ5HqCZSPYIyeivl3hzWlFac/s320/Sahara.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
Creating a hit film is easy right?<br />
<br />
You take a best-selling novel, hire some big-name actors, sprinkle on a few hundred millions dollars’ worth of special effects and exotic locations…and hey, presto!<br />
<br />
This seemingly fool-proof formula has produced some cripplingly bad movies over the years. And right up there, in the very top tier of infamy, sits <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318649/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Sahara (2005)</a>.<br />
<br />
Few films have failed so magnificently, on such a grand scale, and for such a duration as this cataclysmically terrible piece of cinematic guff. It almost re-wrote the rule book on how spectacularly wrong moviemaking can go. (Time Magazine calculated the studio lost nearly $150 million, making it the fourth most costly failure of all-time.)<br />
<br />
Not only was it a box office catastrophe: the film also spawned a famously venal, seven-year legal battle as the author and studio tried to pin the blame on each other. After spanking away an impressive $20m in legal fees, the case collapsed in a legal stalemate without anyone collecting a dollar. Oh, hum.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Dirk Pitt, an adventurer and naval salvage expert, goes in search of a ship from the American Civil War that went missing while carrying millions in gold.<br />
<br />
His hunt takes him to Mali in Africa, which is currently in the middle of its own civil war. Along the way, Pitt falls in with a United Nations doctor who’s trying to find the source of a mystery illness that is killing hundreds of people.<br />
<br />
Will Pitt find his missing treasure? Can the good doctor stop the deadly disease? Will anyone be able to explain why an American Civil War ship – you know, one of those things that travels on water – is smack-bang in the middle of the largest, driest landmass on the planet? Don’t count on it.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Matthew McConaughey plays aquatic adventurer, Dirk Pitt. Today, the Texan drawler is best known for his Oscar-winning dramatic roles – but during the Noughties, he was stuck on a treadmill of dire romantic comedies. Tired of cooing coyly at female co-stars, Sahara was supposedly Buff Matt’s big opportunity to recast himself as an action lead. (His previous attempt, dragon yawn-fest Reign of Fire, had gone up in flames.) But after the film bombed Matty Mac had to starve himself to death in Dallas Buyers Club before Hollywood took him serious as an actor.<br />
<br />
Penelope Cruz plays the do-gooding doctor. Despite lauded roles in critically acclaimed European films, Hollywood has only ever used the Spanish siren as exotic eye candy. Here, she does little more than spout exposition, get periodically rescued and maintain immaculately glossy hair.<br />
<br />
Bulking out the cast are a pay cheque-collecting William H Macy (hey, those university fees for his daughter don’t pay themselves) and Exploding Helicopter fave, Delroy Lindo. Always a reliable supporting turn, Del Boy has racked up an impressive number of films – Domino, The Last Castle, Broken Arrow – featuring some form of chopper conflagration.<br />
<br />
<b>The script </b><br />
<br />
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but one has to wonder whether Clive Cussler’s blockbuster novels were ever ideal material for a film. Even the books’ biggest fans would concede that their credulity-stretching plots – Atlantis discoveries, Mayan death cults – are bat-shit crazy.<br />
<br />
Compounding matters was the notoriously curmudgeonly Cussler himself. Scarred by an earlier, botched adaptation of his work, the novelist demanded – and got – final script approval. Worse, he insisted that all the loopier elements of his story should remain intact.<br />
<br />
No less than eight writers tried to make sense of the novelist’s hokum, but curmudgeonly Clive refused to accept any script version that didn’t have every one of his bonkers notions present and correct. Finally, with filming set to commence, the producers simply stopped answering his calls and shot their preferred script. Cue the legal battle…<br />
<br />
<b>The director</b><br />
<br />
Given that Sahara was an expensive, effects-laden film, with big-name stars, extensive location shoots, and a dog’s breakfast of a script, the film desperately needed a veteran director.<br />
<br />
You know the type: a grizzled tyro who could stride about the set, bullwhip in one hand, megaphone in the other, and knock the thing into shape through sheer force of personality.<br />
<br />
So naturally, the directorial reins were handed to first-time – yes, that’s first-time – filmmaker Breck Eisner. Obviously, young Breck won this film-making gig purely on merit. But it probably was nice that he could also get regular visits on set from his dad, Disney head honcho Michael Eisner.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
After locating the missing 150-year-old battleship, McConaughey and company find themselves in a sticky spot when the film’s villain turns up in a helicopter gunship. Scrabbling around inside the rusty vessel, they – let’s say, yes, improbably – find a working onboard cannon.<br />
<br />
Boom! The cannonball crashes through the windscreen of the helicopter – and for a moment, it seems as though that’s the only damage it’s going to cause. But then a small fuse burns down and the iron projectile detonates.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
This scene is really the only reason to watch this film. That, and Penelope Cruz’s immaculately maintained glossy hair.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
It goes without saying that you don’t often see helicopters destroyed by 19th century weaponry. Certainly, this is the only time a whirlybird has been blown up with a cannon.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Sahara wasn’t Hollywood’s first disastrous attempt to bring Dirk Pitt to the big screen.<br />
<br />
In 1980, media mogul Sir Lew Grade splurged millions on the soggy sea adventure Raise The Titanic, which sank faster at the box office than did the titular ship. Later, the uber-producer wryly observed that rather than Raise The Titanic it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b>Still want more? Then check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Sahara. You can listen via iTunes, Spotify, Acast, Stitcher or right here and now...</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="208" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/8973170?autoplay=false" width="504"></iframe>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-10709806716394730412019-06-18T14:18:00.001+01:002019-06-18T14:18:42.753+01:00Hitman: Agent 47<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0yTLbtH-iH2Nko9XwCGheJ23RwD6Nb4RO6NnVWmp3-Y1tvF_-tZm7WBawhkkZddm10PRc3N2we0np6RXwN71GCNSFM_meNLeM0WvDxibyjxoSGwf24GgvIeCapQUnwK1x0ui4ErMnT8o/s1600/Hitman+Agent+47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1012" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0yTLbtH-iH2Nko9XwCGheJ23RwD6Nb4RO6NnVWmp3-Y1tvF_-tZm7WBawhkkZddm10PRc3N2we0np6RXwN71GCNSFM_meNLeM0WvDxibyjxoSGwf24GgvIeCapQUnwK1x0ui4ErMnT8o/s320/Hitman+Agent+47.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
How do you make a movie based on a computer game seem authentic?<br />
<br />
That was the problem facing the creative geniuses behind <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2679042/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Hitman: Agent 47</a> (2015). But after much scratching of heads (and very probably some industrial-level coke consumption), they hit upon an ingenious, albeit counter-intuitive, solution.<br />
<br />
Why not take the glaring limitations of computer games – two-dimensional characters, hopelessly complicated storylines and no real emotional involvement – and instil those very qualities into the film itself?<br />
<br />
The result is Hitman: Agent 47 – a movie it can feel uncomfortable to watch without a PlayStation controller in your hand.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Our protagonist is ‘47’, a genetically enhanced super-soldier or ‘agent’, created as part of a now defunct Government experiment. He’s out to stop a shadowy group called The Syndicate, who (natch) want to revive the Agent programme for their own nefarious purposes.<br />
<br />
As is very often the case in such movies, there’s a reluctant, beardy scientist (named Litvenko) who’s now rueful of the destructive programme he created and so has gone on the run. That means both sides are Looking for Litvenko, which sounds like a middling Russian rom-com and might actually have made for a more interesting movie.<br />
<br />
The hunt leads to the missing boffin’s daughter, who is also trying to track down her errant father. Inevitably, Baldy ’47 and the chick team up. Can they find the secretive scientist before the sinister Syndicate? Will they be able to prevent the reboot of the agent programme? And do you get 10,000 bonus points for shooting two baddies with a single bullet? (Sorry, we forgot this isn’t a game for a moment.)<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
The titular hero is played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1670029/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm" target="_blank">Rupert Friend</a> (taking over from Timothy Olyphant who played the cue ball-headed assassin in the previous film). Although not nearly so robo-handsome as Tim, Rupert is fine in the role – but then again, this this has to be the easiest thesping gig on the planet. As a genetic kill-machine, Agent 47 is utterly incapable of expressing any sense of character, nuance or emotion. Looking back, it’s a miracle Keanu Reeves wasn’t bagged for the role.<br />
<br />
Taking on the villain role is the slightly other-worldly <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0704270/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2" target="_blank">Zachary Quinto</a>, best known for playing Spock in the Star Trek re-boot movies. Now, Quinto is very much an odd bird. There’s such a strange, alien quality to his performance that it’s like watching a Vulcan straining a little too hard to play a human. Still, his peculiar nature is weirdly suited to this video game movie, and he proves an interesting antagonist for Friend to butt heads – and fists, and feet, and bullets, and blades – with.<br />
<br />
Rounding out the cast is <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001354/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Ciarin Hinds</a>, playing the much sought-after beardy scientist. As a seasoned veteran of many genuinely good films – Munich, There Will Be Blood etc – Big C clearly had mortgage payments in mind when taking this job, and his post-it-in performance reflects that.<br />
<br />
<b>It's not all bad</b><br />
<br />
Any bozo could tell that this movie is based on a computer game. The endless scenes of frantic running and shooting – a smorgasbord of unrelenting action – carry all the hallmarks of a typical first-person shoot-em-up game.<br />
<br />
So on the surface, this obviously does meet the standards of a truly terrible movie. And certainly, the critics who pilloried its arrival in cinemas thought as much. (“Uniquely boring”, “an idiotic mess” and “utterly banal” were among the warmer verdicts.) But actually – and whisper this gently, dear reader – Exploding Helicopter quite enjoyed it.<br />
<br />
For all its myriad flaws, the film has a number of deftly choreographed action set-pieces (an escape from an underground car park, and a subway chase are particular highlights), and the imaginative locations lend the movie the superior gloss of a Bond film.<br />
<br />
There’s also a neat plot switcheroo at the end of the first act. And oddly, there are even a couple of decently written scenes that give the characters a smattering more depth than the usual paddling pool dimensions found in similar fare.<br />
<br />
Overall, there is a freshness to the fromage on display here. And so long as your expectations are properly calibrated, this is not a difficult film to enjoy.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Despite the despairing efforts of 47, the film’s denouement sees the Syndicate capture Litvenko. They spirit him away on board a helicopter as our follically-challenged assassin looks on.<br />
<br />
However, there’s a surprise in store for the villain. As he revels in his success, Litvenko – who the film has already established is suffering from a lung condition – triggers an explosive he’s hidden inside his ever-present inhaler. Kaboom! The helicopter explodes. What a cunning wheeze!<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
In an interesting twist on the usual chopper fireball scene, the helicopter crumples inwards as it explodes. Burning wreckage, illuminated against the night sky, then artfully falls towards the ground. Nice.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, this is almost certainly the first time a cinematic helicopter has been destroyed by an asthma inhaler.<br />
<br />
<b>Tagline</b><br />
<br />
“Your number’s up.” Geddit? Not that there’s really that much to get.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-54362343261108770302019-02-23T21:50:00.002+00:002021-01-03T11:01:57.664+00:00Hard Ticket To Hawaii<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5u2rAPTnFznGrcJXqeVZvesTEHk5qPf8YRAVTi6wXIV9mJK6oCegraey4M2WJckRHMSy6xG7zG9TAChnpXIZ_KCgnhRqCel-JdCkJZqEer_E8fE0QFf4gpZKo-_7BSBOMAyEJulLYLEM/s1600/Hard+Ticket+To+Hawaii.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1060" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5u2rAPTnFznGrcJXqeVZvesTEHk5qPf8YRAVTi6wXIV9mJK6oCegraey4M2WJckRHMSy6xG7zG9TAChnpXIZ_KCgnhRqCel-JdCkJZqEer_E8fE0QFf4gpZKo-_7BSBOMAyEJulLYLEM/s320/Hard+Ticket+To+Hawaii.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
B-movies have a long and - let’s be honest - not terribly noble Hollywood history.<br />
<br />
Invariably cheaply produced, these films endeavour to make up for what they lack in big name stars, expensive sets and well-crafted drama by giving audiences plenty of ‘good bits’ (ie: sex and violence)<br />
<br />
Many enterprising filmmakers, from Roger Corman to Russ Meyer, have made a lucrative living by following a simple formula – rustle up any old guff, but remember to throw in enough breasts, punch-ups and explosions to keep audiences distracted. Then in the Eighties, maverick moviemaker Andy Sidaris ramped up the stakes by re-inventing the genre.<br />
<br />
His films concentrated on giving the audience three simple pleasures: bullets, bombs and babes. And so was born the ‘triple B’ or ‘BBB’ movie.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
On a remote Hawaiian island, two undercover government agents accidentally stumble upon a diamond smuggling operation and confiscate the contraband.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly, the local criminal kingpin is not best pleased and sends his heavies to retrieve the sparkles before police reinforcements arrive.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in a sub-plot seemingly unrelated to the rest of the film (and totally unrelated to any notion of credibility), a radioactive killer snake – yes, you read that right – is loose on the island. The wee guy pops up in an early scene then slithers away for over an hour, emerging only at the denouement (from a toilet, naturally) to bite the baddie.<br />
<br />
So, can our heroes slap cuffs on the crook before they’re killed off? What say might the sinister serpent have in proceedings? And most importantly, will the viewer get to gorge on plenty of guns, girls and good bits? You bet.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploiting the exploitation genre</b><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-66kKrL5TxNnogqONDH9ILTG-6IfrtIaOLENAXn9BPcUshWB_gUbxbAS25gH0L3d5oWHj1mEVbh2Bl-MbhmqUHd1L678acvy69NrBwJn_o3hRMY3CD2LcCuTi1GKgHFsDdnWOMBrqtU/s1600/Hard+Ticket+To+Hawaii+guns.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="654" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT-66kKrL5TxNnogqONDH9ILTG-6IfrtIaOLENAXn9BPcUshWB_gUbxbAS25gH0L3d5oWHj1mEVbh2Bl-MbhmqUHd1L678acvy69NrBwJn_o3hRMY3CD2LcCuTi1GKgHFsDdnWOMBrqtU/s320/Hard+Ticket+To+Hawaii+guns.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
So, who was Andy Sidaris? For many years, he was an award-winning sports television director, covering everything from the Olympics to American football. Famously, he pioneered the ‘honey shot’, the now ubiquitous cutaway to an attractive woman in the crowd.<br />
<br />
But Andy ultimately grew tired of sports and relaunched himself as a DIY filmmaker, self-producing a dozen straight-to-video films during the Eighties and Nineties. His signature ‘BBB’ formula is literally all over the screen in Hard Ticket To Hawaii, which is chock full of gun battles, blow-ups and blown-up breasts.<br />
<br />
As writer, director and producer (and probably chief bottle washer) on his movies, Sidaris had no-one to stop him indulging the wackier elements of his imagination. For example: he liked to fill his movies with beefcake guys and buxom dames. So what if they couldn’t really act? That’s what he wanted, goddammit!<br />
<br />
He was also known for putting together notably bonkers action scenes. In this movie, our heroes fight-off a skateboarding-riding assassin before using a bazooka to blow up a sex doll. Then they decapitate someone with an explosive frisbee. You don’t get that in a Chuck Norris movie.<br />
<br />
<b>But what about the babes?</b><br />
<br />
Here too, Hard Ticket To Hawaii delivers. All the leading ladies in the film are played by Playboy playmates (March 1984, May 1984, July 1985, and October 1985, for you vintage pornography fans out there). They may not be the greatest actors in the world, but you can’t fault the other *ahem* assets they bring to the production.<br />
<br />
And the funny thing is, it all kind of works. No-one is ever going to mistake this movie for high art, but it does make for a rollicking piece of entertainment. If you’re looking for a film with plenty of ‘good bits’, you won’t go wrong with this.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Talking of good bits, what of the exploding helicopter action? Fittingly, it combines both a babe and a bazooka.<br />
<br />
As the action nears its end, a couple of villains attempt to escape in a helicopter. Exchanging gunfire with our heroes as the chopper lifts-off, it looks like the baddies may make a successful getaway. But wait! One of our undercover cuties has brought along a bazooka.<br />
<br />
Dressed only in a skimpy bikini, she lines up the whirlybird in her sights and blows the helicopter out of the sky.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
The method and execution of this chopper fireball is very standard, but Exploding Helicopter did derive an unexpected amount of pleasure from the sight of a beautiful, buxom woman, brandishing a bazooka. One to raise at the next therapy session…<br />
<br />
<b>Tagline</b><br />
<br />
To get to paradise, they’ll have to go through hell.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by Jafo</i></b><br />
<br />
<b>Still want more? Then check out the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode about Hard Ticket To Hawaii. Listen via iTunes, Acast, Stitcher, Spotify and all good podcatchers.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><br /></b><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="208" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://podomatic.com/embed/html5/episode/7541004?autoplay=false" width="504"></iframe>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-30717319837868520082019-01-15T18:26:00.002+00:002019-01-18T20:09:51.821+00:00Furious 7<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMI2c-lZHBacvVkl4_1tbEMmxX-e9cfgogZXSCdf0MCOm9gr_ovj4HR7Nr090QE0ZHQC4FRRnA-UAkzUGqqm58XG3LUjlzBCMmZ0WLCAw1jHCp0TvWkGcBOUunMN20enMUhM7tojr6bA/s1600/Furious+7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="950" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMI2c-lZHBacvVkl4_1tbEMmxX-e9cfgogZXSCdf0MCOm9gr_ovj4HR7Nr090QE0ZHQC4FRRnA-UAkzUGqqm58XG3LUjlzBCMmZ0WLCAw1jHCp0TvWkGcBOUunMN20enMUhM7tojr6bA/s320/Furious+7.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
The rise and fall of a film franchise used to be predictable.
<br />
<br />
They’d begin with a box office smash that left giddy audiences clamouring for more.<br />
<br />
This would be followed by a slew of sequels that would steadily decline in quality until the now sorry saga would be killed off. (Or, in these creativity-free days, rebooted a few years later.)<br />
<br />
It’s a cycle we’ve seen repeated hundreds of times. (And that’s just the Spider-Man series.) But every rule has an exception.<br />
<br />
For one franchise that has defiantly bucked this tried and tested trajectory. One series started indifferently, got much, much worse, then unexpectedly transformed itself into one of the most successful franchises around.<br />
<br />
Ladies and gentlemen: Exploding Helicopter gives you the Fast & Furious films.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
Movie number seven opens on an optimistic note for the Fast and Furious gang. After being granted amnesty for their crimes at the end of the previous film, life seems surprisingly quiet.<br />
<br />
But the opening titles have barely finished before any sense of tranquility is unceremoniously mowed down, then crunchingly reversed over again. It turns out that Deckard Shaw - the brother of the villain they stopped in instalment six – wants revenge and begins to hunt Vin Diesel and his homies down.<br />
<br />
Enter Mr Nobody, the mysterious head of a government covert ops unit. He offers to help Big Vin stop Shaw, but only if he- ah, here we go – steals a high-tech McGuffin (copyright: every action movie ever) that’s about to fall into the hands of terrorists.<br />
<br />
What follows is a game of cat and mouse (or, more accurately, car and mouse) as each side competes to complete their mission.<br />
<br />
Could this be the end of the road for Vin and his crew? No. Or will he and his chums get to drive off into the sunset and a potential endless stream of sequels? A resounding yes. Will there be a folksy, aw shucks end scene featuring the heroes, complete with a toe-curling speech about ‘family’. You betcha.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Once again, the cast is headed-up – both literally and physically – by the follically-challenged double act of Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson. Stood together, they resemble a pair of well-trimmed testicles from an LA porno flick.<br />
<br />
And lest viewers were unsatisfied by the number of muscular bald men onscreen, chrome-domed action star Jason Statham joins the cast in the role of Deckard Shaw.<br />
<br />
Also making his debut is Kurt Russell as Mr Nobody, the shadowy government agent who gives the gang their mission.<br />
<br />
Rounding-out the ensemble are returning favourites Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker, and, erm, the other ones (who, apart from the Fast & Furious films, mercifully don’t tend to trouble cinemagoers too much with their ‘acting’. We’re looking at you Tyrese...).<br />
<br />
<b>Long and winding road to success</b><br />
<br />
When Furious 7 became one of the highest grossing films of all-time (appropriately it’s seventh on the top movie list) it capped a remarkable transformation for the franchise.<br />
<br />
This franchise may be an action movie behemoth today, but it’s easy to forget that the first Fast and Furious film was only a moderate hit. Despite being instantly forgettable, it somehow did enough business to spawn two predictably awful sequels (Even Big Vin, hardly the most astute judge of a script, considered them beneath his questionable talents and declined to appear).<br />
<br />
However, after the third film Tokyo Drifted (geddit) in and out of cinemas the whole enterprise looked to be heading for the cinematic scrapheap. It was only after the unlikely appearance of a fourth film that producers finally hit upon a winning formula.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4xbBnnoNQ1KpDtG7OpLBei3p4pXwFFY7I4QNq5XJXO3WUVkIJjgKpeAfL4fFic0-1CkgKlvFvNw0L3Ex9J-H0hzH49VVlX20g9aSPg9YrmfZ_1fhk-OBY3yYFW0wA2fB252avQfvBAA/s1600/rock-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="1091" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4xbBnnoNQ1KpDtG7OpLBei3p4pXwFFY7I4QNq5XJXO3WUVkIJjgKpeAfL4fFic0-1CkgKlvFvNw0L3Ex9J-H0hzH49VVlX20g9aSPg9YrmfZ_1fhk-OBY3yYFW0wA2fB252avQfvBAA/s320/rock-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Dwayne Johnson: Magic ingredient</i></b></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The street-racing plot lines were abandoned, with the focus moved to elaborate heists featuring over-the-top vehicular action. And the cast was rejigged with a ‘greatest hits’ of characters assembled from the previous instalments (Vin Diesel and Paul Walker were brought back to lead proceedings).<br />
<br />
And then, in the fifth film, they added a magic ingredient: Dwayne Johnson.<br />
<br />
The introduction of the The Rock added a new dynamic – not to mention some badly needed charisma – into proceedings. An unexpected critical and commercial hit, Fast Five (2009) made almost as much in ticket sales as the first three films put together.<br />
<br />
Since then the series has powered on, becoming a global phenomenon at a point when most franchises are being handed a revolver and told to take a long walk in the woods.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Like every aspect of Furious 7, the exploding helicopter sequence is spectacularly convoluted. For the sake of brevity, let’s cut it down to the basics.<br />
<br />
Having stolen the McGuffin, our heroes find themselves pursued by a heavily armed attack helicopter.<br />
<br />
Seeing his friends in trouble, Vin Diesel jumps into a car and drives at high speed off the roof of a multi-story car park.<br />
<br />
Vin and his vehicle corkscrew towards the airborne whirlybird as if trying to ram it from the sky. Unfortunately, the car only clips the chopper, and it seems the aircraft has escaped. But wait!<br />
<br />
Remember that bag of grenades we saw a few minutes earlier? Well, they’re now hanging beneath the helicopter’s fuselage. (Big Vin having cleverly hooked them to the whirlybird as he whizzed past).<br />
Before you can shout, “that’s convenient foreshadowing”, The Rock fires a pistol at the explosives causing them and the chopper to explode.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
A truly bravura exploding helicopter.<br />
<br />
Like one of those giant domino displays, this chopper fireball requires a torturously elaborate sequence of events to happen in exactly the right order.<br />
<br />
Unlikely it may be, but you cannot help but applaud the ingenuity.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
Vin Diesel loves a franchise. The big lunk has appeared in 29 films and more than half – 16 to be exact – are related to franchises. And with Fast & Furious 9 and 10, XXX 4 and another Riddick sequel still to come, it’s a number that’s only set to increase. Just call him Mr Original.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-1531739391739952882018-10-19T17:02:00.001+01:002018-10-19T17:23:42.191+01:00P.O.W - The Escape<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Historians will tell you that the Vietnam War ended in 1975. And technically, that’s true. But in the Philippines, the conflict kind-of-continued to rage long into the Eighties.<br />
<br />
That’s because enterprising B-movie producers discovered that the exotic, forest-strewn country made for an ideal Vietnam substitute – the perfect place to knock-out cheapo, straight-to-video versions of <a href="https://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2012/06/apocalypse-now.html" target="_blank">Apocalypse Now</a> and The Deer Hunter.<br />
<br />
The Philippines had everything they needed: plentiful jungle locations, a ready supply of locals who could be passed off as Vietnamese extras, and a government happy to hire out its military to any filmmaker with a suitcase of dosh. (The fact that that the country’s President was the fabulously corrupt Ferdinand Marcos was presumably just a coincidence.)<br />
<br />
Ultimately, this happy confluence of circumstances spawned – without exaggeration – hundreds of ‘Nam-sploitation movies during the Eighties. And they included: <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091713/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4" target="_blank">POW – The Escape</a> (1986).<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
The Gawd-loving US Army detects an evil Vietcong prison camp that’s holding American POWs. Hell, no! Their answer: send in swarthy Colonel James Cooper, to say things like ‘We have eyes on the package’ and effect an immediate extraction of the caged heroes. So far, so impressive. Only thing is, much like Uncle Sam’s participation in the actual conflict, the rescue plan quickly goes utterly tits up.<br />
<br />
Fast forward a scene, and Cooper now finds himself imprisoned in the very same hellhole as the soldiers he was supposed to be liberating. Like, d’oh.<br />
<br />
So, will the brave Colonel simply spend the rest of the war crying and eating beetles in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’? Or will he be able to make a sneaky escape from Vietcong’s clutches? It’s a total mystery. If only there was a clue in the title…<br />
<br />
<b>Who’s in this?</b><br />
<br />
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Courageous Colonel Cooper is played by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001016/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm" target="_blank">David Carradine</a>. The Kill Bill star, once captured, is tied-up and thrown into a bamboo cage. It’s all meant to break the spirit of the foreign invader. But as we know from the actor’s <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=7763422&page=1" target="_blank">sad demise by auto-asphyxiation</a>, our Dave actually rather enjoyed being painfully trussed-up in a cramped space. He probably wrote that scene himself.<br />
<br />
Alongside Carradine, B-movie fan favourite <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0416944/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Steve James</a> (American Ninja, The Delta Force, McBain) appears as an escape-hungry prisoner. Big Steve has never been in imminent danger of winning an Oscar, but his larger-than-life persona adds welcome energy to the screen.<br />
<br />
Also making an appearance in this movie is – quelle surprise! – Asian utility actor <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0538683/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1" target="_blank">Mako</a>. Japanese by birth, Mako was the man Hollywood called whenever they needed someone ‘oriental’. Over the years he played characters from China, Tibet, Singapore, Vietnam and even, radically, Japan.<br />
<br />
Filipino war movie aficionados also have a chance here to spot the legendary bit-part actor, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Gaines" target="_blank">James Gaines</a>. “Who he?” you ask. Well, Gaines was one of a number of Philippines-based Americans who ended up accidentally falling into an acting career.<br />
<br />
Here’s the thing: filmmakers shooting in the Filippino jungle perennially needed western faces to bulk out their casts. So Gaines and a handful of other loafers – despite having no appreciable acting ability and precious little motivation – gradually became a sort of impromptu stock company for ‘Nam-sploitation movies. The ‘Slack Pack’, for want of a better phrase.<br />
<br />
Billed simply as ‘prisoner of war #5’, this was just one of six films Gaines made that year – with such edifying titles as Dog Tags, Strike Commando, Jungle Rats, and Commando Invasion.<br />
<br />
Working at a similar pace throughout the Eighties, it’s probably fair to say that Big Jim saw more action in Vietnam than those poor buggers who actually fought in the war.<br />
<br />
<b>War, huh, what is it good for?</b><br />
<br />
“War: what is it good for?” asked soul legend Edwin Starr in his famous Vietnam protest song.<br />
<br />
“Absolutely nuthin’” was his conclusion. But in this case, it’d be fairer to say: a no more than reasonable level of entertainment. (Which admittedly, isn’t as catchy).<br />
<br />
POW – The Escape is a deeply average film. It’s so middle of the road it should have white lines painted on it. Sure, there are plenty of gun battles and exploding huts (a trusted ‘Nam staple), and the acting is fine. But there’s nothing to lift the film out of its foxhole of utter averageness.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Realising that the raid on the POW camp has gone wrong, David Carradine and his men attempt to ‘get to da choppa’ © and make their escape. Unfortunately, one of the Vietnamese soldiers is packing a rocket launcher. Charlie takes aim at the aircraft and “bazookas” it out of the sky. Bullesye!<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
Helicopter lovers will be relieved to know that no real helicopters were harmed in the making of this film. A bit of trick editing – which is actually rather decently done - switches the shot between the airborne chopper and an impressively large fireball.<br />
<br />
Exploding Helicopter particularly liked the way debris, including a couple of unconvincing dummies, were incorporated into the explosion.<br />
<br />
The sequence is given a poignant finale with David Carradine getting to gaze forlornly at the whirlybird wreckage.<br />
<br />
<b>Favourite quote</b><br />
<br />
Danny Glover may have immortalised the line a year later in Lethal Weapon. But David Carradine gets there first, wearily mumbling: “I’m getting to old for this shit”.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b>Check out the review of <a href="http://www.comeuppancereviews.net/2013/05/pow-escape-1986.html" target="_blank">P.O.W - The Escape</a> by our friends Comeuppance Reviews</b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-63272346845871624022018-09-15T13:22:00.002+01:002018-09-26T14:49:05.917+01:00The Gauntlet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Does art imitate life, or life imitate art?<br />
<br />
It’s a question that has troubled both the great minds of Greek philosophy and anyone who’s ever watched <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076070/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">The Gauntlet</a>. (Admittedly, not two audiences you generally find in each other’s company.)<br />
<br />
A brief explainer: the 1977 film stars Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke, who were then a real-life couple. In the movie, Clint plays a callous, cruel, cold-hearted cop who treats the witness he’s meant to protect (Locke) like dirt.<br />
<br />
At the time, Eastwood’s bullying behaviour just seemed part of his gritty role and the plot’s ‘odd couple’ premise. But in the wake of the couple’s acrimonious split a decade later, it turned out that, oh, Clint wasn’t really acting.<br />
<br />
Amid the fallout of their venomous and lawyer-heavy break-up, rumblings began. Keen-eyed observers noted that there were obvious parallels between the callous, cruel, cold-hearted bastard who treated Locke like shit-on-a-shoe and the character he played in in the movie. (Boom! See what we did there?)<br />
<br />
Suddenly, The Gauntlet was transformed from a disposable, throwaway thriller to a sombre piece of documentary evidence worthy of earnest philosophical study. (And of course, close examination by a website dedicated to rotor-assisted conflagration. Consider this Exploding Helicopter’s official ‘Me too’ moment.)<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
A drunken, ne’er do well, cop (Clint Eastwood) is tasked with escorting a prisoner (Sondra Locke) from Las Vegas to Phoenix. His charge is a gobby prostitute who’s scheduled to appear as a witness in a big court case.<br />
<br />
It should be a routine prison transfer, but someone isn’t keen for the cantankerous call-girl to take the stand. Within minutes of starting their journey, the mismatched pair – who fight like two rats in a sack – find themselves pursued by a couple of hitmen. And the situation quickly gets worse when they discover that the Vegas police force is also trying to bump them off. Yikes.<br />
<br />
Realising they’re in the middle of a vast conspiracy and with no-one to trust, the pair go ‘off the grid’ in an effort to complete their journey as they run….. the gauntlet.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Locke and Eastwood – essentially the Brad and Angelina of their day – were in a relationship from the mid-Seventies until 1989, during which time co-starred in six films (including The Outlaw Josey Wales, Bronco Billy and Sudden Impact). But few movies have ever crashed as publicly and violently as their own picture-perfect partnership finally did in the late Eighties. It was one of the bitterest bust-ups in Hollywood history.<br />
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How bitter, you ask? Well, Locke recounted – at length – the full grisly details of the couple’s eventful relationship in her dirt-dishing autobiography, ironically titled The Good, The Bad and The Very Ugly.<br />
<br />
In the book, the Oscar-nominated actress recounted how ‘Squint’ had curtailed her promising acting career by getting her to appear almost exclusively in his projects. (Locke appeared in only a handful of non-Clint films).<br />
<br />
Not content with controlling her professional life, Eastwood – adamant that he didn’t want to be a father – persuaded Locke to have two abortions and then get her tubes tied. (Although that didn’t stop the caddish Clint fathering two children with a woman he was seeing on the side).<br />
<br />
And after they broke-up, the Man With No Scruples allegedly used his Hollywood pull to sabotage her attempts to work as a director. (After multiple projects were mysteriously nixed, Locke sued, and received an out of court settlement). As Locke reflected after publishing her book, “I wish I’d read it, not lived it.”<br />
<br />
All of which provides an interesting lens through which to view The Gauntlet. Throughout the film, Clint orders Locke around with contemptuous disdain. And when she doesn’t comply, she quickly finds herself tied-up, gagged and even knocked out with sleeping gas.<br />
<br />
“Miserable bitch,” Old Squinty spits out at one point, with particular venom. In another scene, he takes particular pleasure in questioning how on earth Locke’s character could make a living as a prostitute, given her looks.<br />
<br />
Some observers might suggest that Exploding Helicopter is reading too much into one film. But one only needs to look at how frequently ill-fortune befell the demure blonde whenever she appeared in an Eastwood picture.<br />
<br />
For starters, her character is raped in The Gauntlet, Sudden Impact and The Outlaw Josey Wales. And then there’s the ultimate indignity of co-starring with a libidinous orangutan in not one but two movies. To paraphrase the great Oscar Wilde, once may seem like misfortune; this often just looks like callousness.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Riding a motorcycle, Eastwood and Locke try to evade a couple of mafia sharp-shooters who are pursuing them in a helicopter.<br />
<br />
The pair head cross-country in an effort to shake off the villains. Their path takes them down a hill that has a string of electricity pylons running across it.<br />
<br />
Now, it might seem a fairly simple task to avoid these easily observable hazards. But if Exploding Helicopter has learned anything over the course of a long, unsuccessful writing career, it’s to never underestimate the stupidity of a pilot.<br />
<br />
Sure enough, the villains – giddy at the prospect of being able to finally bump-off Eastwood and Locke – fly too close to the pylons. The whirlybird becomes entangled in wires, crashes to the ground and explodes.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
The helicopter rather fetchingly becomes snafued in the cables like a rotor-bladed meatball entwined in spaghetti. It’s a nice touch.<br />
<br />
The chopper then crashes to the ground whereupon it promptly explodes. (Unlike a pasta-based Italian classic).<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
This is the earliest example Exploding Helicopter has discovered of a helicopter getting caught up in wires or cabling. Since this film though, it’s become a familiar trope of the genre: see <a href="http://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2012/01/die-hard-with-vengeance.html" target="_blank">Die Hard With A Vengeance</a> and <a href="http://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2012/01/dark-knight.html" target="_blank">The Dark Knight</a> for similar efforts.<br />
<br />
<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
<br />
The Sud Aviation SA 341G Gazelle destroyed in this film is the same helicopter that appeared in The Cat from Outer Space as well as the TV disaster movie Flood.<br />
<br />
<b>Favourite line</b><br />
<br />
“Now, have you got that? Or do I need to write it in braille and shove it up your ass?”<br />
<br />
<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-82148012019671285112018-08-22T15:40:00.002+01:002018-08-22T15:40:24.040+01:00Mission: Impossible - Fallout<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It's a wonder that Tom Cruise is still making Mission Impossible films.<br />
<br />
Not because of declining box office returns or increasingly critical reviews. No, it’s simply that the Cruiser should surely be dead by now.<br />
<br />
Whereas other leading men of a similar age are opting for a more sedentary career route, Hollywood’s favourite hyperactive fifty-something has spent the past year running, fighting, crashing, crawling, stunting and, yes, actually breaking his leg in the name of movie-making.<br />
<br />
Indeed, having turned the franchise into a global phenomenon by performing all his own stunts, Tiny Tom is now trapped in a cinematic kamikaze spiral where he has to perform increasingly dangerous feats – hurtling off the world’s tallest building, strapping himself to an actual flying plane – merely to maintain the audience’s interest.<br />
<br />
That’s why, four years away from his bus pass, his preferred mode of transport, rather than catching the No. 46 to Safeways, is dangling off the landing rails of a flying chopper while a grinning baddie repeatedly stamps on his hands. You get tired just watching him.<br />
<br />
<b>The plot</b><br />
<br />
You’ll never believe this, but stolen nuclear material is about to fall into the hands of devious terrorists. (Copyright: every espionage movie, ever.) Of course, Ethan Hunt faces the usual piston-armed race against time to get it back.<br />
<br />
However, this predictable premise is given a welcome twist by the reappearance of creepy Solomon Lane (the villain from Rogue Nation). And then Hunt himself becomes the chief suspect for masterminding the entire plutonium plot. Crikey.<br />
<br />
<b>The cast</b><br />
<br />
Like an old pair of slippers, the cast has a reassuring, comfortable familiarity.<br />
<br />
As usual, Thomas Mapother IV - as he doesn’t like to be known - heads up the whole affair. Despite careering at speed towards his 60th birthday, he hyperactively bounces through the film in a manner that suggests he’s doing something highly illegal with monkey glands.<br />
<br />
Alongside him is Ving Rhames, the only other survivor from the first impossible mission. While Cruise remains oddly preserved, the passage of time has not been so kind to Big Ving, whose broadening visage has now taken on a slightly unreal, waxy quality – almost as if he were wearing one of the film’s famous rubber masks.<br />
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There’s also a role for franchise newcomer Rebecca Ferguson – whose turn as a British agent was the undisputed highlight of Rogue Nation. Once again, she oozes cool allure, pounding henchmen into hamburger meat and speeding through Paris in motorcycle leathers. And for all the double-crossing and secret identities, she’s the only one here likely to be mistaken for someone who can act.<br />
<br />
Which is just as well, since she has to pull off one of Hollywood’s toughest thesping gigs: portraying a plausible love interest for that demented-smiley-Scientologist-couch-jumper, Cruise. (She fails, of course, but it’s a feat no-one has convincingly pulled off in over 20 years).<br />
<br />
Last, and we definitely mean last, is the joyless Simon Pegg. Introduced as a spoddy computer geek in M:I 3 to provide a few LOLs between the main action set-pieces, the scrawny comic has inexplicably been promoted to Cruise’s right-hand man.<br />
<br />
This is unquestionably a bad thing. Where Pegg’s painful punchlines were once safely confined to a few brief scenes, his mirth-free mutterings are now an integral part of each film.<br />
<br />
And true to form, Fallout opens with Pegg indulging in some tortured ‘banter’ with Tom and Big Ving, which only ends when heavily armed terrorists turn up. Sadly, they don’t take the opportunity to put a bullet through Pegg’s forehead.<br />
<br />
<b>Is this any good?</b><br />
<br />
Exploding Helicopter always likes to have a little a fun at the expense of the film and the actors we’re watching. But here’s the truth – Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a rollicking piece of entertainment.<br />
<br />
This single movie contains more outstanding action set-pieces (a three-way fight in a toilet, a foot chase across London, the hijacking of a prison convoy) than most franchises manage across their entire series.<br />
<br />
But M:I – Fallout is not just a rollercoaster of impressive stunt-work. It also deftly weaves in a more serious theme: the value of one life versus many.<br />
<br />
It all adds up to a very satisfying experience, which delivers on the adrenaline-racing thrills without compromising the audience’s intelligence. In action movie terms, that makes Mission: Impossible – Fallout a rare beast indeed.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
<br />
Naturally, given the nature of this film, the villain has come up with an overly complicated plan to detonate his nuclear bombs. And really, the tangled methodology in this one would make a Scooby Doo villain blush.<br />
<br />
All you need to know is that the ‘McGuffin’ needed to defuse the weapons is being flown away from the danger zone in a helicopter by the rascally Henry Cavill (seen here sporting the ‘tache that cost £25m to ‘hide’ with CGI during the Justice League re-shoots).<br />
<br />
The Cruiser gives chase aboard another chopper to set up the film’s climatic action sequence – a truly fantastic aerial duel between the two aircraft. Finally, after 20 minutes of airborne histrionics and thrills, we find TC and HC trading punches atop the fuselage of a wrecked whirlybird that’s swinging perilously on a wire off a mountain cliff edge.<br />
<br />
With time running out before the bombs go off, Cavill finds himself in the unenviable position of hanging from wire on which the damaged helicopter is suspended. But having gained advantage, our favourite Scientology minion gives the wire a good hard yank, which sends Henry and the helicopter tumbling down the mountainside. The fuselage hits bottom and explodes.<br />
<br />
<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
<br />
Taken as an entire sequence, this could be one of the greatest additions to the exploding helicopter canon. We get tension, visceral thrills and ultimately the satisfaction of a chopper fireball. There really isn’t any more an audience can ask for.<br />
<br />
<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
<br />
Watching Henry Cavill plummet to this death alongside the wreckage of a damaged chopper, Exploding Helicopter was reminded of the Cliffhanger climax where Sylvester Stallone engineers a similar demise for John Lithgow.<br />
<br />
<b>Favourite line</b><br />
<br />
In a film where so much attention is spent on creating inventive fight scenes and geographically accurate foot-chases, it’s a shame that the same care wasn’t spent on the dialogue.<br />
<br />
After a shootout in Paris, the Cruiser attempts to console an injured policewoman.<br />
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“Je suis desole,” he says, in a line of French so painfully rendered that it drew audible titters in Exploding Helicopter’s cinema.<br />
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<b><i>Review by: Jafo</i></b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-38700854188034920142018-02-22T21:29:00.000+00:002018-02-22T21:29:59.458+00:00Missing In Action 2: The Beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here’s a simple question: when is a sequel not a sequel? When it’s a prequel, obviously.<br />
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But what if that film was never meant to be either a sequel or a prequel – what are we supposed to call it then?<br />
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Such terminological philosophising may seem like academic navel-gazing. How, you’re doubtless wondering, could you ever make a film without first knowing what it’s meant to be?<br />
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Ah, dear reader. You’re clearly not familiar with the weird history of the Missing In Action series.<br />
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<b>The plot</b><br />
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The Vietnam War is over, but a group of American soldiers are still held as prisoners of war in a secret jungle camp.<br />
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Even though the conflict ended years ago, one dastardly prison commandant (Soon-Tek Oh) is making a point. He won’t release Uncle Sam’s boys until their leader (Chuck Norris) makes a false confession to committing war crimes.<br />
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But Chuck is made of stern stuff, his hide as thick as the triple-denim outfits he inexplicably favoured in several of his other movies. The mini-marvel refuses, so he and his men find themselves subjected to a never-ending campaign of psychological and physical torture.<br />
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So the grisly stage is set. Will Chuck crack and finally confess under his captor’s cruel crusade? Or can he and his men engineer an audacious escape? Er, yes.<br />
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You see, Missing in Action 1 – the film preceding this – was all about an ESCAPED prisoner of war, which does rather give the game away. Literally everyone watching this sequel knows exactly how things will end. Edge of your seat stuff, eh?<br />
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<b>The cast</b><br />
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Given this film is notionally a sequel, the part of Captain James Braddock is once again played by Chuck Norris - the heroic and inevitably bearded leader of the American POWs.<br />
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Never the most verbose actor, our favourite beaver-in-human-form is on peak monosyllabic form here. Entire scenes take place where he does little more than grunt tersely or glower silently at his captors.<br />
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This may sound like harsh criticism, but in fact it’s high praise. Because there is perhaps no uglier cinematic sight than watching everyone’s favourite furry kung-fu pygmy trying to act. As Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry famously observed, “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”<br />
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Still, that’s not to say that the film is without at least one flamboyant turn. Enter Soon-Tek Oh as the vicious prison commandant, Colonel Yin. While the name may not be familiar, the face certainly will be. Mr Oh spent over 30 years playing a variety of Asian stereotypes in a *ahem* Chinese laundry list of TV shows and films. And his performance here could best be described as ‘stock Oriental villain #3’.<br />
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As the dastardly Colonel Yin, Soon-Tek is required to delight in many elaborate displays of cruelty, rage uncontrollably at his subordinates, and twizzle his moustache at the end of every scene.<br />
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Viewers of a liberal persuasion will find the performance a painful reminder of a time when Asian actors endured whole careers playing a handful of stock, cardboard caricatures.<br />
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Fortunately, we live in more enlightened times. These days, you can find a rich variety of three-dimensional Asian characters in all manner of Hollywood blockbusters. And who could find anything culturally inappropriate in top Manga movie Ghost In The Shell (starring Scarlet Johannsson), samurai classic 47 Ronin (hello, Keanu Reeves) or the Chinese fantasia, The Wall, starring, er, Matt Damon.<br />
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<b>Sequel, prequel, what the hell should we call it?</b><br />
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Here’s a brief history of the chronological mess that is the Missing in Action movies. Having secured the services of Chuck Norris, legendarily tight-fisted producers Menahem Globus and Yoram Gohan were convinced that their Vietnam epic was going to be a success.<br />
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To save themselves the time, trouble, and particularly expense of returning to make an inevitable sequel, the parsimonious pair decided to shoot a follow-up at the same time. The first film would tell the tale of a brave American soldier who spent years in brutal captivity before escaping. The sequel would show our hero returning to ‘Nam to free other POWs.<br />
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Shooting commenced on both movies. And all seemed to be going swimmingly, until they ruined everything by actually taking a look at the dailies. Because while they had in fact made a very good movie – a bona fide smash, probably – it was the second one that worked. The first movie, the one meant to launch the whole mini-franchise, was a merde-ball, a dog’s dinner, an absolute stinker.<br />
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Realising that audiences would never watch their gem of a sequel if they’d been scarred by a terrible first film, the producers hatched a cunning wheeze: simply release the sequel first.<br />
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So, Missing In Action 2 became Missing In Action, while the original was rebadged as Missing In Action 2 with a handy subtitle – The Beginning – to explain the bonkers timeline to bamboozled viewers. Confused? Just wait until you hear about Missing in Action 3. (More of that later).<br />
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<b>Why is it such a stinker?</b><br />
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What was it about this film that panicked producers so much? Put simply, Missing In Action 2 is possibly the most schizophrenic film Exploding Helicopter has ever witnessed. Individual scenes veer chaotically from daytime soap opera emoting to stomach-churning violence. (Picture Harold and Madge from Neighbours having a delicate squabble over the barbie, then Madge opening her hubby up stomach-to-throat with a flensing knife. It’s that kind of tonally awkward.)<br />
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One minute the POWs are swapping tear-jerking stories about their pregnant gals back home, the next Norris is suddenly biting the head off a rat. It’s very disturbing.<br />
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Having said that, given the choice between watching Wee Chuck floss his sizeable gnashers with rodent entrails or attempt some more ‘acting’, most viewers would probably choose the furry innards.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter action</b><br />
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Generally speaking, Vietnam War films are a mecca for helicopter fans. You can barely get through five minutes of most ‘Nam movies without hearing the steady ‘thum-thum-thum’ of rotor blades as an open-sided chopper swings into shot. And many end up in flames.<br />
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So it’s no surprise to see the film open with our diminutive hairy star and crew flying low above the Vietnamese jungle in a chopper. And even less of a surprise when they come under heavy fire.<br />
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The whirly bird is fatally damaged and unable to land, so Chuck and his men bail out – jumping into a river they seem to handily be flying over. Without anyone at the controls, the stricken copter crashes into the ground and explodes – becoming yet another casualty of war.<br />
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<b>Artistic merit</b><br />
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This is one horrible helicopter explosion. As the aircraft nears the ground, it suddenly disappears behind a very artificial-looking ball of flame.<br />
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Clearly embarrassed by the poor quality of his composite shot, the director wisely lingers but a moment on the fiery cloud before cutting away.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter innovation</b><br />
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You don’t often see pilotless helicopters explode. The only other one that springs to Exploding Helicopter’s mind is in <a href="http://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/2013/11/piranha-2-spawning.html" target="_blank">Piranha II: The Spawning</a>.<br />
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<b>Tagline</b><br />
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“An American hero’s story continues,” boasts the film’s poster, ignoring the fact this is a prequel. Then again, “An American hero’s backstory is completed” isn’t terribly catchy.<br />
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<b>Interesting fact</b><br />
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After the first two films, you’d think it would be hard for the series’ chronology to become yet more convoluted. But that’s what happened with Braddock: Missing In Action 3 (1988).<br />
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In Chuck’s third ‘Nam outing, the long years of captivity are altogether expunged from his character’s history. (In a breath-taking flashback, we even see him airlifted home at the end of the war.) Worse, he’s suddenly given a Vietnamese wife and child who have hitherto never been seen nor mentioned, and whose existence flatly contradicts the entire events of MIA 2.<br />
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Not since a very-much-alive <a href="https://seanmunger.com/2012/09/14/bobby-ewing-in-the-shower-an-epic-storytelling-gaffe/" target="_blank">Bobby Ewing wandered out of the shower</a> in Dallas (rendering the 31 episodes preceding his very noticeable death redundant), has Exploding Helicopter seen such a cavalier attitude to continuity.<br />
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<b><i>Review by: <a href="http://www.explodinghelicopter.com/p/meet-team.html" target="_blank">Jafo</a></i></b><br />
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<b>You can read a review of Missing In Action 2: The Beginning by our buddies over at <a href="http://www.comeuppancereviews.net/2013/11/missing-in-action-2-beginning-1985.html" target="_blank">Comeuppance Reviews</a>.</b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3282768023983893032.post-248659213781683002018-01-23T16:52:00.002+00:002018-01-23T16:52:24.216+00:00Money Talks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As its title suggests, Rush Hour (1998) hit cinemas like a shot of adrenalin and got audiences feeling very giddy indeed.<br />
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In truth, hopes had not initially been high. A variant on the buddy cop formula (copyright: Walter Hill and 48 Hours), the film teamed gobby joke-smith <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000676/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm" target="_blank">Chris Tucker</a> with martial arts legend <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000329/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Jackie Chan</a> for the usual squabbling-then-bonding shtick.<br />
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But audiences loved it. An unexpected box office smash, it spawned two hugely profitable sequels that improbably transformed Tucker into the world’s highest paid actor. (The fact he pocketed $25m for Rush Hour 3 is by some way the funniest thing about that particular film.)<br />
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To most people, the helium-voiced comic appeared to spring from nowhere. But he’d actually given his sidekick skills a dry-run in an earlier, now largely forgotten film – <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119695/?ref_=nv_sr_1" target="_blank">Money Talks</a> (1997).<br />
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<b>The plot </b><br />
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An unscrupulous TV reporter (Charlie ‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QS0q3mGPGg" target="_blank">Winning</a>’ Sheen) engineers the arrest of a small-time conman (Tucker) to create a story for his news channel.<br />
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But as the luckless thief is being taken to jail, he’s unwittingly caught up in a prison break when a criminal kingpin is sprung from chokey. The famously unforgiving LA police, mistakenly believing him responsible for the death of several officers, vow to bring in the hapless crook ‘dead or alive’ (with a pointed emphasis on the dead).<br />
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Hunted across the city and desperate to prove his innocence, the wronged felon turns to an unlikely source of help: the shady journalist who landed him in this mess in the first place.<br />
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The perfidious pair partner up. Can the criminal clear his name? Will the heinous hack get an exciting exclusive? Will this movie avoid shoddily mining every single buddy cop cliché in the book? No.<br />
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<b>Falling star 1…</b><br />
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By playing fast-talking crook Franklin Hatchett, Chris Tucker found the perfect foil with which to reprise the motor-mouthed monologues that had made his stand-up act such a success. Although how the jibbering joker ever became a top comic remains a mystery to Exploding Helicopter.<br />
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His trademark rapid-fire repartee seems born not so much from an urgent need to share the zinging punchlines percolating in his head, but rather to obscure the fact that nothing he says is terribly funny. He’s the comedy version of a hamster on a wheel – expending huge amounts of energy but going nowhere.<br />
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Worse still, the stream of consciousness word-blurt is delivered in a migraine-inducing falsetto. Screechy and speedy but never funny, Tucker’s whole career is a triumph of sass over substance.<br />
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<b>Falling star 2…</b><br />
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Talking of sass over substance (abuse), Charlie Sheen’s turn as the unprincipled newsman has to be seen to be not at all believed in. Now, coming across as a complete dick has rarely been a problem for Carlos Estevez, not because he’s a good actor but because he’s a complete dick.<br />
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Indeed, the coke-snorting wife-beater’s most profitable period as a thespian came while playing a sanitised version of himself in the hit TV series, Two and a Half Men. Sadly, his newfound popularity convinced the Platoon star – who once ‘accidentally’ shot a fiancée - that what his viewers really wanted was to see more of the ‘real’ him.<br />
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And in fairness, he did deliver. Looking through its fingers, mainstream America watched on as Sheen got himself fired, shacked up with two porn stars (then beat one of them up), and had an unforgettable <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QS0q3mGPGg" target="_blank">drug-fuelled meltdown on national TV</a>. Of course, all this happened after ‘Money Talks’. But watching the movie, you can already see that this is exactly the kind of guy such things would happen to.<br />
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<b>Buddy movie breakdown</b><br />
<br />
The buddy movie formula is painfully simple: shove two contrasting personalities together, then sit back and watch the sparks fly. The only real rule is that, while the partnered protagonists aren’t meant to like each other, the audience should find one or other of them appealing (or at least be amused at their sparring).<br />
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That clearly was an ask too far for ‘Money Talks’ and its hapless director, Brett ‘Fatty’ Ratner – a plodding cinematic journeyman whose mantra should be: ‘Will this do?’ Against the odds, Ratner manages to give us two irritating characters, played by two unlikeable actors, in an adventure you care little about.<br />
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Exploding Helicopter lays no claim to be a film scholar, but we’re pretty certain that’s no recipe for enduring success.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter action </b><br />
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Still, at least there’s a helicopter explosion. The pivotal scene takes place at the LA Coliseum during the film’s big climax. Our *ahem* heroes are pursued by two rival gangs who each want a cache of stolen diamonds (a sub-plot too tiresome to explain) that Tucker has in his possession.<br />
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As a massive gun battle breaks out, Sheen cleverly uses hand-grenades to booby-trap a helicopter belonging to one of the villains. When the police arrive, the baddie tries to make an aerial getaway. But the chopper’s take-off triggers the hidden explosives, creating a fireball that consumes the helicopter.<br />
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<b>Artistic merit </b><br />
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It’s always nice to see a villain’s despairing death throes and Money Talks treats us to a fine example of the form. As flames envelope the whirlybird’s fuselage, the desperado recognises his imminent fate and screams a despairing “Noooo….” before he too is turned to ashes. Quality stuff.<br />
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<b>Exploding helicopter innovation </b><br />
<br />
Exploding Helicopter appreciated the clever and unique way in which the chopper was rigged to explode.<br />
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Basically, Sheen pulls the pins from several grenades and jams the now primed devices under the copter’s landing skids. As the chopper takes off, the pressure on the grenades’ levers is released causing them to detonate. Ingenious. <br />
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<b>Interesting fact </b><br />
<br />
After making Money Talks, Chris Tucker became a born-again Christian. It’s still not known whether God has forgiven him for this risible tosh.<br />
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<b>Review by: <a href="http://www.explodinghelicopter.blogspot.com/p/meet-team.html" target="_blank">Jafo</a></b>Exploding Helicopterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16045345937871417288noreply@blogger.com1